Guide on Werewolf Roles and Game Setup

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BRUTALITOPS

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The purpose of this thread is to go over the background of the best way to set up fair werewolf games, and also, it goes over additional roles that haven't been used yet in game that I think you guys may be interested in at some point.

This thread is long and probably the only person that might read it all is usfreedom :whoa:

So with that in mind,

I base all of this on this site:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=151417

which is a site dedicated solely to werewolf (they call it mafia) made up of basically werewolf hypernerds, whom have all played thousands of games, and so I trust them on how they have come to the conclusion on these game mechanics.

The most important thing in setting up a werewolf game is balancing each side. This is done by attributing the worth of various roles in the game. You can have as many or as few roles as you want, and as long as the point values are close to equal, the game is going to be relatively "fair" at the beginning.

Basic Roles you already know about:

Villager = 1pt
Wolf = 4.5 pts
Seer = 4 pts
Angel = 3 pts
Outsider = -.5pts

*In addition, a night zero start with a peek for seer (the way we've always started games) is an additional 2pts to village.

So, for example, in a game with 13 players with 3 wolves, the game might be something like:

3 wolves = 13.5 pts
10 villagers = (9 regular villagers + Seer + Nightzero peek) = 15pts

Which, based on the varying skill of the village, is an overall balanced game.

In my next post, I will go over various new roles that we have yet to try.
 
posting this in sports hobbies and pictures because I don't want to burden everyone with an annoying post about werewolf O_O. fuck the sports/hobbies regs. no one cares about you O_o
 
=IMPERATOR= said:
The purpose of this thread is to go over the background of the best way to set up fair werewolf games, and also, it goes over additional roles that haven't been used yet in game that I think you guys may be interested in at some point.

This thread is long and probably the only person that might read it all is usfreedom :whoa:

So with that in mind,

I base all of this on this site:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=151417

which is a site dedicated solely to werewolf (they call it mafia) made up of basically werewolf hypernerds, whom have all played thousands of games, and so I trust them on how they have come to the conclusion on these game mechanics.

The most important thing in setting up a werewolf game is balancing each side. This is done by attributing the worth of various roles in the game. You can have as many or as few roles as you want, and as long as the point values are close to equal, the game is going to be relatively "fair" at the beginning.

Basic Roles you already know about:

Villager = 1pt
Wolf = 4.5 pts
Seer = 4 pts
Angel = 3 pts
Outsider = -.5pts

*In addition, a night zero start with a peek for seer (the way we've always started games) is an additional 2pts to village.

So, for example, in a game with 13 players with 3 wolves, the game might be something like:

3 wolves = 13.5 pts
10 villagers = (9 regular villagers + Seer + Nightzero peek) = 15pts

Which, based on the varying skill of the village, is an overall balanced game.

In my next post, I will go over various new roles that we have yet to try.
Click to expand...

:fu:
 
In many of our past werewolf games, we have treated all wolves as equal. With some of the following roles, the game would need to be setup with one wolf acting as a "head wolf." With a head wolf:

1) Wolves could still discuss as a group who to nightkill,
2) any particular wolf could send the nightkill to the game overseer,
3) any wolf could still be peeked by a seer,

but as a matter of record, only the head wolf would be marked down as making the kill. This comes into play for the following roles: watcher, tracker, jailkeeper, and roleblocker. Read on to see what I mean:

Watcher
Value: (+1pt to any existing role)
Team?: Either
Purpose: Informative

The watcher picks a target at night, and they get to see who, if anyone, made an action on their target. The watcher does NOT learn what the action was.

example: Lets say Billy as an Angel and Beefy is the headwolf. All 3 wolves decide to kill watermark on a particular night. Billy being a super smart player decides to protect watermark. A watcher decides to watch watermark. A watcher would then be informed that both billy and beefy (notice the watcher can't pick up on the other wolves) visited watermark that particular night.

What the watcher DOES NOT KNOW, is who is the angel, and who is the wolf.

In the morning when the village finds out that someone was protected the night before from a nightkill, the watcher now knows that billys and beefys interactions are wolf/village. If a seer came out later on and called out beefy as a wolf, the watcher would know beefy is an angel and a confirmed villager, even if the seer himself did not peek billy yet.

example2:
The seer outs himself and confirms 3 villagers. The angel is already dead. At night, the watcher can watch the seer, and when the wolves inevitably come to kill the seer, the watcher will know for certain the identity of the headwolf. This essentially would result in a 4th peek.

example3:
The watcher decides to watch a high profile, active player, who the watcher thinks may be likely to get peeked. The watcher sees yurt visit superfreak, but in the morning, superfreak is still alive. This will mean one of two things:

A) Yurt was the angel and protected superfreak the prior night (therefore yurt is confirmed villager)

B) Yurt was the seer, and if you see yurt start talking about how superfreak
seems villagery, you can now infer further information.

Additional Notes:
To make the game more fun, or balanced, etc, one wolf could be a watcher. They could then watch either their fellow wolves or high profile players in hopes of fishing out the seer, so they could kill them at a later date. It would obviously make any particular wolf slightly more powerful. But if village was ever top heavy, it could be an interesting addition.

Final Thoughts:

I think a watcher is one of the coolest roles we have yet to try. A watcher requires a bit more skill to play. A seer can more or less fire aimlessly at people at night and if they manage to survive 3-4 days They can shake up the game no matter what by either clearing a lot of villagers or pointing out a wolf or two.

The watcher has to be more adept at figuring who is likely to be peeked, who is likely to be nightkilled, who is likely to be protected. The advantege however is that if a watcher manages to pick the right person, they can gain information on multiple targets in a single night. You could also have a game with multiple watchers for cross analysis. A game with no seer and two watchers should be about the same.

This was waaaaaaaaaaaaay longer than I wanted it to be O_O.

Next up: Tracker, Jailkeeper, Roleblocker, vigilante (a role I think usfreedom brought up once, if memory serves me correctly)
 
i would love to get a turbo going but we really need a good core group to commit about 3 dedicated hours or so
 
Tracker
Value: (+1 point to any existing role)
Team: Can be either, usually village
Purpose: Informative

A tracker is very similar to a watcher, the difference being that a watcher selects a target and see who comes to them whereas a tracker selects a target and sees who they go to

example
You are pretty sure x is a wolf. You select x to follow at night. You learn x visits watermark. Watermark is dead in the morning.

This means 1 of 2 things:

A) You could have been following a seer instead of a wolf, and a wolf coincidently killed the person a seer peeked

B) you were right, x is a wolf

example2

You are pretty sure who the seer is, so you elect to track the seer at night and see that he targeted Yurt. The next day, yurt is still alive, and the supposed seer is claiming his innocence. you can now clear yurt without the seer outing himself

Final Thoughts:

Mafia nerd site states the tracker is as powerful as a watcher. A watcher can lie in wait on popular targets that have a high chance of having action go down on them, whereas if you are a tracker, you can only target a specific individual. A watcher can also find out information on multiple targets in one night, a tracker can only find out whether or not their single selected target visited anyone. Trackers might be slightly weaker in this regard. But they do function as a weaker seer in that if you have a good inclination on who might be a wolf, you can confirm based on a wolves night actions.
 
Jailkeeper
Value: unknown. Weaker than angel however. maybe +1.5
Team: village
Purpose: Protective

The name jailkeeper derives from placing someone in protective custody. In doing so, you protect the person at night from being nightkilled, in the same fashion that an angel would. The difference however, is that because the player is locked up, they are also roleblocked and therefore if they are a powerrole they cannot preform their night duties. The tradeoff though, is that if the jailkeeper can find a likely wolf target, he can prevent the wolves from killing ANYBODY.

Essentially, the jailkeeper is a weaker version of the angel.

example:

The seer outs themselves, the jailkeeper places the seer in protective custody, preventing a werewolf nightkill. Unfortunately for the seer, he wouldn't be able to peek that night.

Final Thoughts:

One major contrast between the jailkeeper and the angel is that if the jailkeeper targets the head wolf, he can prevent the wolves from killing anybody at night. If an angel protected a wolf by accident, the wolves would still be able to kill.

On any given seer outing, the chances of protecting the seer is higher with the jailkeeper. If an angel had previously protected the seer on the previous night, there is nothing the angel can do the night after the seers outing. The jailkeeper however, if he protected the seer the previous night, could then try and jail the head wolf. Thus, concerning a seer outing, it's better to have a jailkeeper on your side, ever so slightly. This is still offset though the times the jailkeeper might block a useful watcher, angel, or seer.
 
Roleblocker
Value +1 to any existing role
Team: either
Purpose: Protective

The roleblocker is a very simple role that any dumbling prole could use, so there wont be much explanation about it. Essentially, it is a role that fits well on either team. It can be placed on the wolves side if they need some balance in the game, or be used on the village side.

At night, the roleblocker selects a target. That target is then blocked from performing any night actions. If you screw up and block an angel, they can't protect. If you screw up and block a seer, they cannot peek. If however, you are able to find the head wolf, you can prevent the wolves from nightkilling.

Final Thoughts

Simple but effective role that can be thrown into the mix from time to time to help balance out the games. Even newbies can use this role pretty effectively, so it's a good one to put in games. It's even more useful if you are near the end game where you have a good chance of hitting a wolf at night.
 
1shot Vigilante
Value: +2 to any existing role. (i.e. worth 3 total to village team)
Team: Village
Purpose: extra firepower

The vigilante is a role that a lot of players that play werewolf seem to love. The most common variant is the 1shot vigilante, which allows a villager the opportunity to perform a kill on anyone on the game. Once you use the kill, you revert to being a normal villager.

example:

watermark is a 1shot vigilante and is getting tired that no one is listening to his smart analysis. He's very confident that damocles is a wolf. He decides to kill damocles and turns out to be right. Everyone loves him.

example2:
There are 3 wolves left and the seer just outed two of them. The village lynches one of the wolves and the vigilante kills the other wolf, buying the village essentially another day lynch (since they dont have to waste a day going after the second wolf).

Additional Notes:

There are many variants of the vigilante role. Some games have the vigilante kill at night, others have the vigilante kill during the day in the thread, thereby exposing themselves and confirming their villagerness at the same time. You can also have 2shot vigilantes or even a vigilante with no cap on how many times they can kill. The 1shot seems to be the most popular though, as it's powerful, but not to the point of craziness.

One other bonus, think of the insults and bitching that will fly if a vigilante daykills a villager in spite of protests. Imagine yurt daykilling superfreak to shut him up, or vice versa. Lots of drama :D

Final Thoughts
Vigilante is one the most skill dependent roles. If you fuck up, it harms you immensely, if you are right, you have done a great service to the village. In the right hands, it can be very lethal, and it's good to have a role that skilled ww veterans can really enjoy using.





Masons
Value: +1 to any existing role. (these are done in pairs, so a pair of masons is worth 4pts total)
In larger games you can have a set of 3 masons (worth +1.5) and 4 man groups (+2)
Team: Village
Purpose: Informative

The masons are regular villagers that know the village status of their partner. They should never make up more than 20% of the total village. Thus the minimum number of villagers to have to include the mason role is 10. The masons are also allowed to converse privately at night outside of the thread if they so choose. To have 2 players that know each other can be rather huge in a game. They can out themselves early and provide information to the seer (so the seer does not waste their peek)

example:
The masons out themselves on day1. They thus help narrow down the field for who the seer should peek. The wolves also are forced to a decision if they should go seer hunting or begin killing the cleared villagers. (which would in turn provide seer protection)

example2:
Masons lie in wait. They help discuss who they think is a cleared villager at night without the prying eyes of others. If a a potential fake seer claim happens, wolves have to be more careful on who they peg as a wolf, as they may inadvertently target a mason.

Additional Notes:
One game variant does not allow mason to have the ability to role claim in thread. They thus have to find other ways to out themselves to villagers.

The existence of masons also allows for a game dynamic of being able to balance for wolves defending a fellow teammate more openly. They could subtlely hint to village they are masons. Whereas usually a heavy defense of anybody in game can draw suspicion due to the fact that no villager has perfect knowledge

Final Thoughts:
Masons are a great role to have in games with new and even skilled players. For new players, it greatly aids in having someone they know for sure is clear. For skilled players, they are able to discuss villager strategy at night and share their reads with each other with the full confidence that the other person isn't a secret wolf trying to manipulate them.
 
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The above are all the most well known and most used roles. And there is a reason for that, because they are the most effective and the most fun, without being overly complicated. Each role adds it's own flavor to the game and provides for different strategies.

Take for example the role of the outsider. Though yurt never peeked watermark in that last game (vi) the very existence of the outsider role allowed for nigel to fake claim seer, and easily explain why he had been driving hard at watermark in the previous day. That all derived from a relatively simple and benign role, so imagine what the presence of a watcher, or a vigilante might do.

So hopefully future overseers might be able to draw from this list and create differently dynamic and fun balanced werewolf games O_O
 
Here is a game full of powerroles that would end up being balanced:

13 players:

Wolfteam:
3 regular wolves = 13.5
1 watcher wolf = 5.5
Total: 19 pts

Village:
1 seer (4pts)
1 watcher (2 pts)
1 vigilante (3pts)
1 angel (3 pts)
5 regular villagers

Total: 17
+night zero peek (2pts) = 19 pts
 
Grind, if we ever include that role, I will do everything in my power to act out the above scenario.
 
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