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After browsing the net a while, i see some sites recommend 2 wolves for up to 12 people and some sites start to say 3 wolves should be introduced at the 13-16 person mark.. It seems if you start adding a wolf in that early that it makes the game have about 3 day phases and no more..
It's been a while since i've actually played werewolf but I feel like when i first played there was at least 4 or 5 day phases.. It seems to me with only 3 day phases its a little short and would be harder for the villagers since they only get to lynch 3 people .. This is pretty much just how it goes in a 10 player game (9 with 1 mod). But i just wonder if anyone else has a 'sweet' spot number of day phases they like. is 3 the best? Does too many more start to favor the towns people?
Also As soon as its even towns people vs werewolfs its an end game right? a win for the wolfs the next day becuase they just overpower the towns people and win correct? (i.e. 2 v 2 left).
Also something i was curious about and unrelated, why is it 'not in the spirit of the game' to allow certain characters (the seer in this case) to oust themselfs as the seer whenever they want? I've seen a few post where people have said its not in the spirit to do this, so i assume the seer has to just pretend like he's a normal person and somehow get people to try to execute who he votes for? Is there anywhere I can read about this specific thing or is this just how some people prefer to play? I figure as soon as a seer ousts themselfs the wolfs will dine that night on his bones!
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Werner Bär
Germany
Karlsruhe
Baden
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Did you calculate with 1 night kill per wolf, instead of 1 nightkill total?
The suggested numbers are chosen so that the village can have 2-3 mislynches. Assuming 9 players (2 werewolves, 7 villagers):
start of game: 7-2
mislynch 1: 6-2
nightkill 1: 5-2
mislynch 2: 4-2
nightkill 2: 3-2
now, on day 3, the village *needs* to lynch a werewolf for 3-1. After the nightkill (2-1), they need to lynch the other werewolf on day 4.
With 11 players, they have an additional mislynch available.
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Greg Wilson
United Kingdom
Bristol
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Electricview wrote: After browsing the net a while, i see some sites recommend 2 wolves for up to 12 people and some sites start to say 3 wolves should be introduced at the 13-16 person mark.. It seems if you start adding a wolf in that early that it makes the game have about 3 day phases and no more..
It's been a while since i've actually played werewolf but I feel like when i first played there was at least 4 or 5 day phases.. It seems to me with only 3 day phases its a little short and would be harder for the villagers since they only get to lynch 3 people .. This is pretty much just how it goes in a 10 player game (9 with 1 mod). But i just wonder if anyone else has a 'sweet' spot number of day phases they like. is 3 the best? Does too many more start to favor the towns people?
Assuming one lynch per day and one kill per night, a nine-player game with two wolves will last for two-to-four days. A thirteen-player game with three wolves will last for three-to-six days.
My rule of thumb is to add a wolf for each four players. So a third wolf with thirteen players, a fourth wolf with seventeen and a fifth with twenty-one. This means the village needs to make the right call about half the time to win.
Obviously this can be tweaked depending on the specials used, whether there are any neutrals or non-wolf evils present, and so on.
A correctly-balanced bigger game will last longer, although the inclusion of protective or extra-killing roles will affect things. The trick is to keep things even. If you add too many villagers without adding more wolves, then the village team gets more lynches to find the wolves, and the game starts to favour them.
Electricview wrote: Also As soon as its even towns people vs werewolfs its an end game right? a win for the wolfs the next day becuase they just overpower the towns people and win correct? (i.e. 2 v 2 left).
Yes, under standard rules the wolves win as soon as they are no longer outnumbered. Otherwise the vote locks up, or is controlled by the wolves, and the game is effectively over anyway.
Some commercial versions say the wolves have to kill the whole village, possibly because of special roles.
Electricview wrote: Also something i was curious about and unrelated, why is it 'not in the spirit of the game' to allow certain characters (the seer in this case) to oust themselfs as the seer whenever they want? I've seen a few post where people have said its not in the spirit to do this, so i assume the seer has to just pretend like he's a normal person and somehow get people to try to execute who he votes for? Is there anywhere I can read about this specific thing or is this just how some people prefer to play? I figure as soon as a seer ousts themselfs the wolfs will dine that night on his bones!
This is just down to playstyle. I'm with you, personally. There's a natural disincentive for the seer or other specials to claim too early; they're likely to get eaten by the wolves. The game should be built to handle people claiming their roles, rather than giving people information and then forbidding them from discussing it. It's pretty unenforceable anyway.
Now, in some setups an early all-claim will break the game, and some roles are best used by immediately claiming. To my mind, the fault there is with the imbalanced setup, not with the players who took advahtage of it.
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Thanks for the replies guys...
The reason i am kind of against the 'no reveal' thing is becuase it will be increasingly hard to not 'accidently' break that rule.. i.e. some starts saying "well i'd vote for so and so and not me.. and i cant really say why i just would" or "Trust me on this" I mean its hard to enforce as you say.. But i thought i'd ask..
I originally started this thread becuase i'm trying to host a warewolf night (it is incredibly hard for me to get 10 people.. right now i have 8 total so i may not even get to host it at this point). And I want to give them a good experience..
Since i'm trying hard to get 10 people I doubt i'll have more than 10 (but was hoping and estimating) so i'm keeping the wolves low and since about only 1 or 2 people have even played it before I was trying to see about day phases becuase I figured new players would probably enjoy the game more with an extra day phase or two becuase I feel the towns people will probably lose most games if not all being beginners, though I could be pleasantly suprised i'm sure. I was planning on only using the seer role to keep the game simple.
I was going to keep it at 2 wolves even if i managed to get lucky and get 11-12 or 13 players even. I suppose it doesnt matter all that much becuase If the towns people were winning too easily i could just change it to 3 wolves.. But I wanted the question answered in my head.. I did the math as the first reply to my thread showed.. But in my head I always assumed the players picked the wrong person to lynch. Which meant 3 day phases then game over.. And since I figured the first day phase will more than likely be a guess/wasted kill and the probability of getting a wolf is lower becuase of lack of info or strategy at least for a beginners group. Which really makes me feel like they'd only get 2 day phases to actually use some kind of logical figuring out and even then it may come down to the 3rd day where they have the best chance and i thought the game might feel too rushed or quick, but it might just be me over thinking it..
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Electricview wrote: I originally started this thread becuase i'm trying to host a warewolf night (it is incredibly hard for me to get 10 people.. right now i have 8 total so i may not even get to host it at this point). And I want to give them a good experience..
The Resistance is similar to Werewolf, and works extremely well with 8 players.
It is also pretty much an objectively better game, but that is besides the point. Werewolf needs about 15 or so to shine, and you are nowhere close to the ideal number.
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Australia
Melbourne
Victoria
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Electricview wrote: Also something i was curious about and unrelated, why is it 'not in the spirit of the game' to allow certain characters (the seer in this case) to oust themselfs as the seer whenever they want? I've seen a few post where people have said its not in the spirit to do this, so i assume the seer has to just pretend like he's a normal person and somehow get people to try to execute who he votes for? Is there anywhere I can read about this specific thing or is this just how some people prefer to play? I figure as soon as a seer ousts themselfs the wolfs will dine that night on his bones!
Yeah I hadn't heard this and don't get it either. I tell my groups that they can *say* anything they want during the day, they can tell or lie about who they are, they can even whisper to people next to them if they want. (Of course it might make them look suspicious). The only thing they can't do is to show their card.
I always start with an introduction round - going around the circle (20 folks in my case) where everyone introduces themselves and *must* both claim to be an innocent villager, and accuse the next person of being a werewolf. Not lynching, just accusing.
One memorable game we had two folks claiming to be the fortune teller at the same time (and the villagers lynched the wrong one!). Other times we've had someone claim to be a FT for a few days. Were they still alive because they weren't really the FT, or was it merely a ploy by the werewolves to make the FT look suspicious?
Sometimes some wiseguys announce that they are werewolves. That is not really in the spirit of the game. But I guess I can roll with it. But if they vote for themselves ... they're automatically dead. I mean, it doesn't take a lynch mob to kill someone who offers to kill themself.
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Greg Wilson
United Kingdom
Bristol
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Electricview wrote: I was going to keep it at 2 wolves even if i managed to get lucky and get 11-12 or 13 players even. I suppose it doesnt matter all that much becuase If the towns people were winning too easily i could just change it to 3 wolves.. But I wanted the question answered in my head.. I did the math as the first reply to my thread showed.. But in my head I always assumed the players picked the wrong person to lynch. Which meant 3 day phases then game over..
Four, surely.
Start with three wolves among thirteen players. Three mislynches and three night-kills leaves three wolves among seven players. That's not a majority yet, so the village gets another day to try and pull the game back.
If you're not likely to get up to 13+ players, then yeah, you don't need a third wolf.
You might want to consider adding a traitor in for 11-12 players, though. Simply a human who wins with the wolves. When/if people start getting more confident with the game and you start including special roles, you can upgrade the traitor to a cultist (knows the wolves) or a sorcerer (hunts for the seer).
If you're looking at 8-10 players, though, that is on the low side for a decent game of Werewolf. You might want to look at alternatives.
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David Me
United States
Earth
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3 starts at 15. This is considered heretical at a couple of conventions I go to. At Origins and GenCon, many seem to think you need about 20 people for the 3rd wolf. 3 with 15 gives about a 7/8 chance for the village to win if they just pick randomly. The rest of the balance (and more) should come from the talent of the crowd to pick up on tells.
Oh, and 9 is about perfect for 2, 1 for 5 players.
If you have other numbers, you might try a sort of lesser wolf-team member called the Minion (Ultimate WW) or the Possessed (Lupus in Tabula), who is on the wolves' team and doesn't know who they are but wins only if they win. There are many variations on this role's abilities to tweak to the exact number and to tweak based on other roles that the village gets.
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Greg Wilson
United Kingdom
Bristol
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davidme wrote: 3 starts at 15. This is considered heretical at a couple of conventions I go to. At Origins and GenCon, many seem to think you need about 20 people for the 3rd wolf.
Online we add the third at 13 and the fourth at 17, which asks the village to be right every other lynch. Well, more often we have non-wolf evils, but those are the rough numbers for games with just wolves.
Face-to-face is harder on the village due to the lack of information tracking, so three-in-fifteen sounds reasonable to me.
And yeah, I've run into plenty of moderators who massively underpower the wolf team. There was a report on the forums a little while back of a fifty player game with three wolves and a seer. Wolves should be one-in-four to one-in-five, at least until you start getting into seriously-big games.
davidme wrote: 3 with 15 gives about a 7/8 chance for the village to win if they just pick randomly.
Huh?
I make it more like 1/4 with random lynches.
(Well, okay, more like 0.24522144522145, but no sense in showing off.)
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