Werewolf

Players	Werewolves	+
5–6 (variant)	K♠	Q♥ Seer
6–9	K♠ K♣	Q♥ Seer
10–13	+ K♦	Q♥ Seer
14–17	all 4 Kings	Q♥ Seer

Full rules

Overview
The roles
Setup
Night
Day
Winning the game
Tips for beginners
Variants

Overview

Werewolf is a party game of hidden roles, talking and bluffing. A few of the players are secretly werewolves; everybody else is an ordinary villager – and nobody knows who is who. The game alternates between night, when the werewolves quietly pick someone to carry off, and day, when the whole village argues about who might be a werewolf and votes one player out. The villagers win if they find all the werewolves; the werewolves win if they become as many as the villagers.

One player does not play a role but leads the game: the moderator (narrator). The moderator knows everything, never takes sides and tells the story.

Players: 6–18 – the moderator plus 5–17 players with roles (with 5, see the smaller-group variant); best with 9–13.
You need: a few cards from a standard 52-card deck (see below) and a group that likes to talk.

Werewolf is not a commercial game: it is the traditional party game also known as Mafia, invented by Dmitry Davidoff in Moscow in the 1980s and free for anyone to play. This page describes it with playing cards to deal the roles.

The roles

Each player gets one role card, face down. The card tells you which role you have:

Card	Role	Team	What it does
K♠ K♣ (K♦ K♥)	Werewolf	Werewolves	At night, the werewolves together pick one player to carry off.
Q♥	Seer	Village	Each night, learns whether one player is a werewolf.
2–10 (any)	Villager	Village	No special power – just a sharp mind and a vote.
J♥	Guardian (optional)	Village	Each night, protects one player from the werewolves.
J♣	Hunter (optional)	Village	When out, immediately takes one other player out as well.

The werewolves know each other (they meet in the first night). Everybody else knows only their own card.

Setup

Choose the moderator. Ideally someone who has played before.
Count the players with roles (everybody except the moderator) and pick the cards:

Players (without moderator)	Werewolves	Seer	Villagers
6–9	2: K♠ K♣	Q♥	the rest
10–13	3: K♠ K♣ K♦	Q♥	the rest
14–17	4: all Kings	Q♥	the rest

Take exactly one card per player: the werewolf Kings, the Q♥ and as many number cards (2–10, any suits) as needed to make up the rest. With 8 or more players you may swap one or two villager cards for the optional J♥ Guardian and J♣ Hunter.

The moderator shuffles these cards and deals one face down to every player. Look at your card secretly, then put it face down in front of you. Don't show it to anyone and don't look at anybody else's.
Sit in a circle so everybody can see everybody.

Example: 9 people want to play. Anna moderates, so 8 players need roles: K♠ K♣ (two werewolves), Q♥ (seer) and five number cards – say 2♦ 4♠ 5♥ 7♣ 9♦.

Night

The moderator says "Night falls – everybody close your eyes." All players close their eyes (it helps to drum softly on the table with your fingers, so no rustling gives anyone away). Then the moderator calls the roles one after the other:

Guardian (if in play). "Guardian, open your eyes and choose someone to protect." The Guardian points at one player – yourself is allowed, but not the same player two nights in a row. "Guardian, close your eyes."
Werewolves. "Werewolves, open your eyes." The werewolves look up and, without a sound, agree on one player by pointing at them. The moderator nods to confirm. "Werewolves, close your eyes." In the first night the werewolves also see who their fellow werewolves are.
Seer. "Seer, open your eyes and point at someone." The Seer points at one player. The moderator shows a thumbs up if that player is a werewolf, a thumbs down if not. "Seer, close your eyes."

The moderator remembers every choice and announces what happened only in the morning. The moderator calls every role every night, even if that player is already out – then the moderator simply waits a few seconds, so nobody can tell who is still in the game.

Day

"The sun rises – everybody open your eyes." The moderator tells what happened in the night, ideally as a little story: "In the morning, the village finds Ben's house empty – the werewolves have carried him off." Ben turns his card face up and is out. If the Guardian protected the chosen player, the moderator says "The night was quiet – nobody is missing."

Then the village discusses. Anybody may say anything – accuse, defend, claim to be the Seer, lie. Werewolves pretend to be villagers, of course.

Voting. When the talk dies down (or after about five minutes), the moderator calls the vote: "Three, two, one – point!" Everybody still in the game must point at another player at the same moment – nobody may abstain. The player with the most votes is out and turns their card face up.

Tie: the tied players each get one sentence to defend themselves, then everyone votes again, but only between them. If it's still a tie, nobody is out today.
Then night falls again.

Players who are out stay at the table, may keep their eyes open at night and watch – but they may not say anything or give any hints until the game ends.

Hunter: if the J♣ goes out (by night or by vote), the Hunter immediately points at another player, who is also out.

Winning the game

The moderator checks after every player goes out:

The village wins as soon as all werewolves are out.
The werewolves win as soon as there are as many werewolves as other players left – from then on the village can't outvote them.

Everybody on the winning team wins, including those who were out.

Example: 8 players, werewolves Carla and Dan (K♠ K♣), Seer Eva (Q♥). Night 1: the werewolves pick Ben; Eva checks Carla – thumbs up. Day 1: Ben is out (5♥, a villager). Eva says: "I'm the Seer, Carla is a werewolf." Dan cleverly claims to be the Seer too and accuses Eva. The village believes Eva: Carla is voted out – K♠, a werewolf. Night 2: Dan carries off Eva. Day 2: five players are left, Dan among them. After a long debate the village votes out Dan – K♣. All werewolves are out: the village wins.

Tips for beginners

As a villager: listen more than you talk. Who is quick to accuse? Who changes their vote when it gets tight?
As the Seer: if you reveal yourself too early, you'll be carried off the next night. Wait until you have found a werewolf – then speak up.
As a werewolf: behave exactly as you would as a villager. Voting out your fellow werewolf can even be clever if they are going out anyway.
As the moderator: stick to the same words and the same rhythm every night, and speak towards the middle of the table, so your voice doesn't give away where anyone sits.

Variants

Smaller group (5–6 players with roles): play with only one werewolf (K♠) and the Seer.
Secret roles to the end: players who are out don't show their cards; only the moderator knows. Much harder for the village.
More roles: many groups invent roles of their own. Keep the rule "one card = one role" and write the new roles down for everybody before you start.
Theme: the same game works as Mafia – mafia members instead of werewolves, a detective instead of the Seer.

Background & history

Family: Social deduction game (hidden roles, discussion and voting)
Origin: Soviet Union, 1986–87 (as Mafia); werewolf theme USA, 1997
Also known as: Mafia, City of Palermo, Werewolves
Related games: The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow, Ultimate Werewolf, The Resistance, Showdown

Werewolf is one of the few modern games that are genuinely traditional: nobody owns it, and it has spread mostly by word of mouth. It began as Mafia, created by Dmitry Davidoff at the psychology department of Moscow State University. Wikipedia gives 1986 as the year of its creation; Davidoff himself dates the first game to spring 1987. He used it as a lively exercise for students – an informed minority against an uninformed majority. The game spread to other Soviet colleges and schools and, in the 1990s, to the rest of Europe and to the United States.

In 1997 Andrew Plotkin, known online as Zarf, learnt the game at a puzzlers' convention and wrote it up with werewolves instead of mafiosi, because a hidden enemy who looks normal by day fits the theme so well. His version already has the Seer and uses simple cards dealt face down to hand out the roles – just as this page does with playing cards.

Many commercial editions followed. The best known is The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow by Philippe des Pallières and Hervé Marly (Lui-même, 2001; German: Die Werwölfe von Düsterwald, ProLudo, 2003), which has roles such as the Witch, the Hunter and Cupid; according to the German Wikipedia, it won the As d'Or at the Cannes games festival in 2002. If you enjoy the game, these boxed editions with illustrated role cards are a nice buy – but everything you need to play the traditional game is a moderator and a few cards.

Mathematicians have studied the game too: in 2006 the computer scientists Braverman, Etesami and Mossel proved that, without a Seer and with perfect players, the best strategy for both sides is to pick their victims at random – in real life, of course, faces and voices give plenty away.

Quick rules

Cheat sheet

Helpers