The Werewolf Guide

If you hear him howling around your kitchen door
Better not let him in
Little old lady got mutilated late last night
Werewolves of London again
-- Warren Zevon

Werewolf is a game of psychology and strategy, communication and intrigue. Can you outwit a village? Can you catch a lying werewolf? Can you sniff out the village seers in the dead of the night? Can you lead the village to victory against a pack of evil foes? There's only one way to find out...

The Basics

• An Overview of Werewolf Game Play
• Turbos, Vanillas, Mishmashes, Oh My!
• Jargon and Common Terms
• Rules and Etiquette

How To Run a Werewolf Game

• Overview
• Role Distribution for Vanilla Games
• Tools for Game Mods
• Standard Game Introduction and PM Templates
• Threads about Moderating Games

Schedule

View Scheduling Thread

Strategy

• Basic Villager Strategy (2006) - a classic from the beginnings of POG.
• WW Strategy Part II - Being the Wolf (2006) - a continuation of Basic Villager Strategy
• Ask Not What The Seer Can Do For You (2006) - An Old Timey Feel Good article about seer cover from Chuckleslovakian
• Soah's Advanced Werewolf Strategy (2007) - Tips from one of the masters
• Academic Werewolf Discussions (2010) - Shortline kicks off a thread about all kinds of theoretical werewolf questions
• WW Theory - Classic Mistakes and How To Correct Them (2011) - CPHoya talks about how bad reads happen
• Thoughts on handling conflicting reads from strong villagers (2011) - How to make better use of other player's reads
• Random werewolf strategy musings (2012) - Soah updates his classic Advanced Strategy thread
• Turbo Village FPS Strategy (2012) - discussion about fake claiming seer on d1 as the lynch in a 9-er turbo

Other Resources

• Convert from EST to Your Timezone
• Wikipedia Entry on Mafia
• Archive of past games
• Funniest Werewolf Moments - a (slightly out of date) collection
• Check your Werewolf Stats -- Werewolf Database
• Werewolf DB discussion thread

Frequently Asked Questions

• Question: I want to play! When is the next game?
  Answer: Check the scheduling thread. Or, just look for threads with the icon.

• Question: Where is the vote counter and how do I use it?
  Answer: Check out the Tools for Game Mods

• Question: Help! I think my game is broken! Can someone help me?
  Answer: There are lots of experienced game mods around who are friendly. PM Timelady or well named and we can help you round up a good solution

• Question: What if I have a question that's not in this list?
  Answer: PM a forum mod or try bumping one of the moderation threads. If a question seems like a good fit for the FAQs we'll add it here.

Overview

Thanks to Durron597 for the original.

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!

There are several variants of Werewolf games, but the standard game is called "Vanilla", which this overview focuses on. For details about game variants, see the Turbos, Vanilla, Mishmashes, Oh My! article.

Teams:

There are two teams, called The Werewolves and The Village. The werewolves all know each other, and may communicate with each other during NIGHT (see below). The villagers do not know each other, each villager only knows his or her own role. There are special villagers called Seers, and depending on the game variant there may be other special roles for both villagers and wolves.

Winning the Game:

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, called DAY and NIGHT.

Day Phase - During the day, all players get together to discuss and decide who might be a werewolf! Everyone may vote for who they think is a werewolf. They may also change votes or un-vote as the discussion develops. In most games, day has a fixed length of time, and whoever has the most votes when the time runs out is lynched, which means they leave the game.

In order to vote for a player, you simply bold the name of the player in the thread:

lynch well named

Because bolding indicates a vote, bold text should not be used for other purposes inside the game thread

In many games, Day ends early if one player has a majority of the votes, and he is lynched immediately. This is called a Majority Lynch.

When a lynch occurs, the game mod then reveals the lynched player's 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! This is typically referred to as the Night Kill. The wolves are allowed to communicate privately outside the main thread to make this decision. Normally werewolves are not allowed to communicate privately during the day, although it depends upon the specific game variant.

Also during the night, The Seer may communicate with the game mod and learn the role of any player in the game. The moderator will inform the seer of that player's role (werewolf or village) prior to the start of the next day. If the game includes other special roles they may also have abilities which they exercise in secret during Night.

Roles:

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.

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Turbos, Vanillas, and Mishmashes, Oh My

-- Thanks to soah for writing this section

Werewolf games are divided into several categories based on their speed and what types of roles are present.

Turbos: The defining characteristic of a turbo is its speed. Each day of a turbo typically lasts between 20 to 30 minutes, with 20 minutes being most common as of March 2009. Nights tend to last 5-10 minutes. Most turbos start spontaneously when there is sufficient interest in playing one. If you are interested in playing, look for a current signup thread. If the latest signup has no posts in the past hour, it is almost certainly dead, in which case a new one should be started. Before creating a signup, you should check the bottom of the forum page to see how many registered users are browsing. It takes at least 9 players to play, so more people than that need to be browsing in order for a turbo to have any chance of happening. If you can no longer play a game that you are signed up for, it is your responsibility to sign out.

Turbos can run with any odd number of players between 9 to 17. There are 2 werewolves with 9 or 11 players, 3 with 13 or 15 players, and 4 with 17 players. There is 1 seer regardless of the number of players. With 11 or 15 players, the seer does not receive a peek on night 0, and for this reason, 11 and 15 player games are not as popular. The seer receives a night 0 peek in the other setups. With 9 players, the seer is given a random villager peek on night 0, but in the larger games he is allowed to make his own selection on night 0 (or the mod may give a random peek from the entire player pool if there isn't time to wait to hear from the seer). 9 player turbos are by far the most common. Special formats for 5 or 7 players are also available, but are generally not played.

Some turbos will have a volunteer to mod the game. In other cases, someone known as a rander (for the Excel function rand()), will assign roles and start the game, and whoever is lynched on day 1 will take over. When this happens, the players are responsible for taking note of when night will be, and stopping posting at that time. This scenario is one of the rare exceptions where players may post at night, because someone needs to post the final vote count. Any posts other than to establish who was lynched are still forbidden. Once the results are established, the dead player should announce his role and take over the mod duties. The wolves need to inform this player not only of who they intend to kill, but also of all of their identities, so that the mod can give the seer his results. Also, the seer needs to contact the mod even if he is sure he is getting killed, because when he dies the mod needs to be sure he is posting the correct role in the writeup.

Some mods and randers will only contact the wolves and seer. If you do not receive any message prior to the start of the game, you are a villager.

Due to the frequency of turbos without mods on day 1 and the amount of frivolous votes being cast, it has become somewhat standard that day 1 of a turbo will not end early due to a voting majority. When in doubt, ask the mod for clarification.

Long Games: Long games are the counterpart to turbos. Long games tend to have 20-30 players and follow a much more rigid structure than turbos. Games have fixed start dates with signup threads usually posted at least a week in advance. The most common setup for a long game is to begin on Monday with day and night cycles which closely follow the days and nights in the United States, although alternate schedules also exist. Saturday and Sunday are almost always combined into a single game day. Long Games typically fall into one of two categories: Vanilla Games (formerly known as Average Speed Games) are traditional games with only the basic roles. Games with more exotic roles used to be called Theme Games, but recently have been called Mish-Mash Games as well.

Vanilla Games: This refers to long games which do not have any special roles. Your typical Vanilla Game will have 20-25% of the players as wolves, and 2 seers. These games used to sometimes feature an Angel, although this role has fallen out of favor on POG and is now grouped with other exotic roles. Night will fall early if majority is reached in most of these games. These games usually have one lynch per day, but sometimes there are "Slow Games" which have fewer players and only three lynches per week.

Vanilla+ and Mishmash: These are games which have non-standard roles. In most cases, they follow a theme from a popular work of fiction, and the roles in the game are named after its characters and they receive powers which are intended to reflect that person's abilities. Some themed games are only a little bit different than vanilla games (for example, a seer, an angel, and a vigilante) while others include multiple evil factions or neutral factions, subplots, and unique game events. And of course, many games fall in between the two extremes. In many of these games, day does not end immediately at majority due to the presence of roles with special voting bonuses.


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Jargon and Common Terms

AFK = "Away from keyboard"; When a player is unavailable.

Angleshooting = Violating the spirit of the rules without actually breaking the rules. Angleshooting is not actually cheating, but is considered equally unacceptable.

Bus = "Thrown under the bus"; When a wolf or group of wolves attempt to lynch one of their teammates for strategic reasons.

CFD = "Chinese fire drill"; When there is a flurry of vote changes near the end of the day, attempting to lynch a player who had previously not had many votes.

DADV = "Dead air, dead villager"; A controversial theory that a lack of posting later in the day indicates that a villager is being lynched and the wolves are refraining from posting.

FPS = "Fancy play syndrome"; Making a complicated or advanced play rather than adhering to common strategy guidelines, usually with the connotation that the fancy play is worse than the standard play.

GOAT = "Greatest of all time"; Also WOAT ("Worst").

Halfway rule = A controversial strategy which advocates leaving very good players alive for half of the game to get their insights, and then lynching them to ensure that they do not win in case they are a wolf.

ITA = "In-thread attack"; A mechanic used in mish mash games that allows players to attempt to kill each other during the day by posting a special phrase in the game thread, i.e "lasergun biggerboat". Usually ITAs have only some percentage chance of being successful, and are only allowed during limited times, called "ITA periods".

ITE = "In-thread event"; Refers to some special game-mod led event or sub-game that happens during a mish-mash game. Typically in-thread events may reward extra game powers for those that win them, or death to those that lose, or have other interesting mechanical consequnces.

Lolcatting = Conceding as a wolf, which was famously done by one wolf team with an endless string of lolcats posted in the thread.

POE = "Process of elimination"; A strategy which attempts to identify the villagers rather than the wolves, with each remaining wolf supposedly being part of the remaining uncleared players.

PoR = "Post restriction"; Refers to games that allow each player a limited number of posts each day, typically with a penalty for players who go over, such as having extra votes counted against them towards that day's lynch.

SHC = "Seer-hunt cleared"; Refers to a player who is likely to be a villager because the wolves killed someone who made posts similar to that of a seer who had peeked the player as a villager.

SHROOP = "Scott Howard's rule of odd posts"; A controversial theory that wolves are more likely than villagers to revise their posts prior to posting them, making them more likely than villagers to make posts which contain glaring grammatical errors that arise from botched revision. This theory does not refer to all types of typographical errors.

TWTBAW = Too Wolfy To Be A Wolf

Spew = Inadvertently giving away information about who is or is not a member of your wolf or neutral team.

Wagon (or bandwagon) = Refers to people banding together and voting for the same person, and to the person on the receiving end of those votes.

UTR = "Under the radar"; Attempting to avoid drawing attention to oneself, generally through infrequent and low-key posting.

WIM = "Want it more"; Used by members of the Sporting Events forum. Refers to the attribute of passion and desire to win that some players possess. Also WIL ("Less").


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Werewolf Rules and Etiquette

As long as the game is ongoing, you may talk about the game only inside the game thread

• Posting anything that could impact the outcome of an ongoing game outside the game thread is against the rules, and in general you should never mention ongoing games at all. It may not be harmful to mention being "alive in another game" with no details, but think carefully before you post. Making a post outside the game thread that affects the balance of the game is a serious detriment to the integrity of the game. Remember that the game is "ongoing" until the game moderator posts in the game thread that it's over.
• The forum software allows users to include external images and videos, and to link directly to other webpages. This is generally permissible, but it is not intended that players use these methods as a primary means of communication. Using any of these things as a means to disguise or hide information is prohibited. Using images, video, or audio for the purpose of preventing your posts from showing up via text search is prohibited. Posting video or audio of yourself is controversial, and you should consult with the game moderator prior to the start of the game if you wish to do either of these things.

You may post in the game thread only when it is DAY

• If night falls at 8pm, then posts at 8:00 are OK, and votes at that time count.
• You may neither post nor vote at :01, votes with that timestamp will not be counted, and the post will be counted as a foul. When game moderators make posts saying, ":00 Good :01 Bad", the numbers refer to the minutes past the hour at which votes and posts are legal and illegal.
• Accidental night posts occur from time to time, especially with the vagaries of clock synchronization, but you are expected to make an effort to avoid night posting.
• In games where Day ends at majority lynch, players may make posts to the effect of "MAJORITY NIGHT. DO NOT POST." when majority has been reached. No other posts may be made at this time. You may not post any other content in the post in which you announce majority lynch, unless your post itself is the one that contains the vote which creates majority. If you believe that majority lynch has been announced in error and the game mod is not present, you may make a post to challenge the announcement of majority, but no further game-related content should be posted until it is agreed that it is in fact still DAY.

You may post only when you are alive

• Some game mods allow players to make one farewell post after death. It cannot contain any form of game-related content and must have the first line as: *** DEAD ***. Check the rules for your game to see if it's allowed.

If you have a role which allows you to communicate outside the game thread, then you may do so only when allowed by your role, and only with individuals specified by your role

• In a vanilla game with standard wolf chat, wolves may communicate outside the thread during NIGHT only.
• In a vanilla game with 24 hour/day wolf chat, wolves may communicate outside the thread at all times.
• In vanilla+ or mish-mash rolesets, some roles may be able to communicate outside the thread with other players at specified times.
• Many games have modified rules for wolf chat. Check the game moderator posts, and when in doubt, PM the game mod.

You may not edit or delete posts in the game thread for any reason at any time

• Not even to correct a typo or fix a broken BBcode tag.
• Editing post content or deleting a post creates an imbalance in information that is not intended to be part of the game, i.e if someone sees your pre-edited or pre-deleted post, and thus could create a serious problem with game integrity. This includes posts which were made illegally, such as those made at Night, posted in the wrong thread (non-players posting in the game thread as well as players posting game content in the wrong thread), posted with the wrong user account, etc.

You may not post screenshots of, or directly quote your role PM, seer peeks, or any other game-related communication that originated outside of the game thread

• Werewolf is a game of interpreting information that is posted in the game thread. It is not intended that players can prove their role or their claims by introducing direct evidence that originated outside of the game thread. Players may share the basic mechanical information that is related to their role, powers, and other communication from the mod, but may not share any information about the communication which serves only to increase the credibility of the claim.
• You may not post screenshots or post any exact quotations from messages received from the game moderator or from other players (if you have a role which allows you to communicate privately with other players). This includes your role PM, seer peek results, as well as any and all other communication. Any information that you wish to pass along must be put in your own words.
• You may not refer to the medium used to communicate with the mod or other players that you are allowed to chat with. Showing knowledge of which chat mediums are preferred by the mod or other players would give you an unfair advantage in convincing other players that you are being truthful. You should be careful to avoid making posts such as: "The mod PMed me last night and told me I got a new power." Many game mods communicate with the wolf team on Skype, so an innocent slip like this may unfairly cause people to think you are more likely to be a villager. Saying instead, "I was told..." will always avoid these problems.
• You may not question other players about the details of their outside communication in a way that could lead to violations of these rules. Questions should be limited to what information a player has, and not to the precise manner in which that information was conveyed to him.
• Are you about to post a message that has the word PM in it somewhere? Are you sure it's a legal post? There are some contexts where it's okay, but there are a lot where it's not.
• Posting fake screenshots, fake quotes, etc, will be treated the same as posting real ones.
• If you are uncertain about what you can post, consult first with the game moderator.

You are expected to participate if you sign up for the game

• At minimum you are expected to post at least once during each game day.
• The game mod may establish further rules for minimum participation. You are expected to follow them.
• Real life happens; if you need to stop playing a game PM the mod requesting a sub and stop posting in the thread. Do not post in the thread that you are requesting a sub.
• It is considered bad etiquette to sub out of a game for any reason other than a lack of sufficient time to participate, or as a result of a breach of game integrity. Doing so repeatedly may result in you being banned from playing werewolf or from the forums.
• It is considered bad etiquette to sign up for multiple games at once, then decide to sub out of some but not others. Doing so repeatedly may result in you being banned from playing werewolf or from the forums.

You may post only from the account you signed up for the game with, and you may not sign up multiple accounts for the same game

• Signing up two or more accounts for one game (multi-accounting) is cheating and will get you banned.
• Gimmick accounts are generally allowed, but check with the game mod.
• It may be considered bad etiquette by some to play on a gimmick and pretend to be a new player when you are not.
• You may not use proxy servers or other technical tricks to hide your IP address from the forum moderators. If the mods cannot verify your true location, you will not be allowed to play. Lack of cooperation in establishing your identity may result in your account being banned.

You are expected to behave civilly

Werewolf is a game about lying and catching people lying. It's an adversarial game and arguments between players are normal and expected. Passion and intensity are fine but excessively personal attacks or insults are not. Even in a werewolf game you must respect the forum rules about civility. Failure to do so may cause you to be infracted or temp banned, and repeated problems may get you perma-banned. Players are expected to abide by the spirit of this rule. Rude and obnoxious posts may not individually merit moderator intervention, but they are not tolerated as a pattern of behavior. If you are frequently involved in unpleasant encounters, the forum moderators will have a lower threshold for intervention, and you may receive infractions or bans based on a series of objectionable posts even if none of them individually are egregious.

Werewolf is also a community and team-based game. While there are many styles and strategies and reasons for playing and you may choose your own, you are expected to be respectful of the time and energy others put in as players and as moderators. You are expected to play to win. Intentionally sabotaging your team, or choosing strategies with the sole purpose of trolling other players in the game is not allowed.

If you have problems getting along with other players, game moderators may choose to exclude you from their games. Game moderators may exclude any player for any reason, and have the full support of the forum moderators to exercise this right.


You are expected to be familiar with the rules, and you are expected to abide by them even if you think they are incorrect

• Ignorance is not a defense, although leeway and guidance will always be given to new players.
• If you think a rule is unfair or unbalances the game, you must still follow it. Discuss it privately with the game mod, and if necessary, bring it up for public discussion AFTER the game.
• If you have any questions about the rules or the setup of the game that you are in, ask them PRIVATELY to the game moderator. Game moderators should not respond to any questions posted in the game thread.
• Players are expected to abide by the spirit of all rules, not just the letter of the rules. Violating the spirit of the rules while abiding by the letter of the rules is called angleshooting and is not acceptable, and may be punished the same as cheating in some situations.

Note that all rules are subject to modification by game mods, and game mods may enforce rules at their discretion

Always read the game moderator's posts. You are expected to adhere to their rules even if they are significantly different then the default rules. Game mods may choose to modkill or otherwise respond harshly to fouls even in cases where forum mods would not.


Enforcement of Rules -- Werewolf Grievances Thread

Complaints about rule breaking and other problematic behavior in werewolf games goes here:

The Werewolf Grievances Thread

Be sure to read the entire OP carefully before posting and DO NOT POST ABOUT ONGOING GAMES



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Moderating a Werewolf Game: Overview

Hooray for game mods! They make POG an amazing place to play werewolf. Chances are, if you've played more then a handful of games, you probably already know almost everything you need to know to successfully moderate a werewolf game. Check out the posts below (or linked from the OP) to get the tools and information you need, OP and rule templates, PM templates, or advice. Then, get started!

Here's a few extra tips for moderating werewolf games:

• 90% of good modding is handling the typical mod actions smoothly. Pick day and night times that work for you, and be around to open and close the thread. Post vote counts at reasonable intervals. If you need help with occasional vote counts, don't hesitate to ask the players. If you need help with opening or closing the thread one day, ask the pub or or one of the forum mods. If we are going to be around, we can help
• Flavor is awesome and everyone loves it. If you are running a vanilla+ or mish-mash, put some thought into whether players are going to read too much mechanically into your flavor posts, or consider marking them as being distinct from game mechanics
• Strive to maintain game balance. Require that all player communications with you happen by PM, and avoid directly answering posts in thread.
• If something goes wrong and the game balance is impacted, don't feel obligated to be the police. First focus on keeping the game balanced and functional. Ask for help from the POG mods on dealing with rules violations, or talk to an experienced mod or player who isn't in the game. Remember to do so via PM or IM.
• Have a great time and thanks for modding!

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Standard Role Distribution for Vanilla Games

# of players	Villagers	Wolves	Seers	Pregame Seer Peek
9 players	6	2	1	Yes
11 players	8	2	1	No
13 players	9	3	1	Yes
15 players	11	3	1	No
17 players	12	4	1	Yes
19 players	14	4	1	No
21 players*	14	5	2	Yes
23 players	16	5	2	No
25 players	17	6	2	Yes
27 players	19	6	2	No
29 players	20	7	2	Yes
31 players	22	7	2	No
33 players	22	8	3	Yes
35 players	24	8	3	No
37 players	25	9	3	Yes
39 players	27	9	3	No

* Vanilla 21-er with 2 seers is considered to be somewhat village-favored. It is common to run these games with 1 seer and 1 angel, or 1 full seer and 1 half seer (gets a peek every other day) instead.

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Tools for Game Moderators


Fennec Fox Vote Counter - A tool that makes it easy to generate vote counts on the fly. This is a must have.

The POG Game Mods UserGroup

In Thread Attack Module - in order to use this, you will need MS Access

Link to download: Module

See this thread for more details: ITA Module

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Standard Templates for Game Moderators

Thanks to Zurvan for the original OP template

Opening Post and Werewolf Rules

Template for Turbos

Role PM Templates

Villager
Wolf
Seer

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Threads about Game Moderation

• Soah's Guide to Modding (2008) - useful advice, although don't count votes manually, use FennecFox!
• Sub, Modkill, or... (2009) - A discussion about dealing with inactive players
• Werewolf Balance and Craziness (2009) - A discussion about balancing mish-mash games
• Werewolf Moderation Discussion (2011) - A somewhat freeform thread discussing modding
• Designing WW Games: General Thoughts on Vanilla+ Setups (2012) - Soah discusses creating good Vanilla+ game setups
• The Art of Creating and Balancing Mish-Mashes (2012) - A good guide to mish-mash from TimeLady

If you know a thread that should be listed here, PM us!


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