How to play

The idea

Every player secretly gets a role card. Most players are on the village team, a few are werewolves, and there may be oddballs with agendas of their own (the Tanner wants to be voted out; the Minion is on the wolves’ side without being one). During a single night, roles wake up one after the other to peek at, swap or protect cards. In the morning nobody is quite sure which card they hold any more. After a short discussion everyone votes at once, and the team that got what it wanted wins.

Setup

• 3 to 12 players. The host picks the roles; the deck holds three more cards than players.
• Each player is dealt one card face down; the three extra cards stay face down in the center.
• With the Alpha Wolf, a fourth center card, the Center Werewolf, is placed sideways next to the other three.
• Some roles need company: Masons come in pairs and the Alpha Wolf needs another Werewolf in the deck. The role picker enforces this.

Online, the host creates a table, shares the code, link or QR, arranges the seat order to match the real room (neighbours matter for some roles), builds the deck and starts. Everyone plays on their own phone.

The night

Look at your card once, then close your eyes. The app then wakes the roles in the official order: the wolves find each other, the Seer looks at a card, the Robber steals one, the Troublemaker swaps two other players’ cards, and so on. When it is your turn, your phone shows what you may do and only you see what you learn. Roles that cannot affect each other act at the same time, so a ten-player night still takes a minute or two.

Roles whose card ended up in the center still “wake”: the app pauses for them so nobody can tell whether a role is in play. A shielded card (Sentinel) cannot be viewed or moved.

The Doppelgänger looks at another player’s card and becomes that role, card and all: whoever holds her card at dawn is that role. What she copied decides when she acts: the early roles she plays at once (the Seer’s look, the Robber’s theft), groups she joins when they wake (the wolves, the Masons, the Vampires, the Aliens), and the rest she plays on her own right after the original (the Insomniac, the Revealer, the roles the app gives an instruction to). The app calls for her after each of those roles whether or not she copied it, so the night gives nothing away. Copy the Copycat and you are whatever it copied, without knowing what.

Marks

With a Vampire role in the deck (Cupid, the Diseased, the Priest, the Assassin…) every player also gets a face-down mark: a Mark of Clarity, which does nothing. At dusk, before the night, those roles hand out other marks. A new mark replaces the old one, so nobody ever has more than one. When dusk ends everyone looks at their own mark, and the players with a Mark of Love wake up to see each other. At night the Pickpocket and the Gremlin can move marks and the Marksman can look at one. A Sentinel’s shield covers a card, not the mark beside it.

• Mark of the Vampire: the Vampires give it together, and the player who has it is a Vampire now.
• Mark of Fear: the Count gives it, and the player who has it does nothing at night.
• Mark of Love: when one of the lovers dies, the other dies too, protected or not.
• Mark of Disease: whoever votes for the player who has it cannot win.
• Mark of the Traitor: the player who has it wins only if someone else on their team dies.
• Mark of the Assassin: the Assassin wins if the player who has it dies.

The day

The sun rises and the timer starts. Talk. Claim your role, share what you saw, catch the lies. Everything the night taught you is listed under “What you learned tonight”. Anyone may press Skip to vote; the vote starts when everyone has, when the timer runs out, or when the host ends the day.

The vote

• Everyone votes at the same time. You may not vote for yourself.
• The player with the most votes dies. On a tie, everyone tied dies.
• If nobody receives more than one vote, nobody dies (the “circle vote”). The village wins only if no werewolf was in play.
• The Hunter’s target dies too if the Hunter dies. A Bodyguard’s target cannot die. The Prince cannot die.

Who wins

What counts is the card in front of you at the end of the night, not the one you were dealt. The results screen shows every card, every vote and the full night log, so you can see exactly what happened.

Playing together, apart or both

The table works for people in one room, people on a video call, or a mix. Everyone has a microphone and a camera button at the top of the screen. With the microphone on you talk with everyone else whose microphone is on, from the lobby to the results; at night everyone is muted. With the camera on, the others see you during the day. A group sitting together turns on one microphone, on a phone or laptop in the middle of the table, and leaves the others off, which keeps a shared room free of echo.

Tips for a good first game

• Start with the classic deck: two Werewolves, Seer, Robber, Troublemaker and a Villager.
• Talk early. Silence helps the wolves.
• Claim something. A player with no claim is the easiest vote at the table.
• Remember that the Robber and the Troublemaker move cards: the Seer may no longer be the Seer.

Where to go next

Every card has a page of its own under the roles, with its rulings and how to play it. The guides cover strategy, decks for every table size, marks and artifacts and hosting a game night. Short on players? The bots will take the empty seats.