GAMEPLAY

Advice to the Players (By Character)

Werewolves:.

• If you are playing using the village expansions, your first target may want to be a particular special token. Note: If there is a pyro, it may be risky to target that token
• Be vigilant of players who may be FT by observing their speech, their behavior, or their votes
• Werewolf Lovers: If you are a wolf in love, you may want to start getting out your fellow wolves by day 2 or 3. Accusing them day 1 may hint to the other wolves that you are possible lover
• Werewolf as Bartender: Try to keep you bartender token as long as possible. Vote for people who you think will not receive votes
• Werewolves as Bailiff: Passing too many powerful tokens can be detrimental to your survival. Observe the situation and decide who if you want to pass the token and who is the best candidate to pass it to. Do not pass the tokens to people who are eager for it
• Werewolves as Confessor: Sometimes it is worth it to get multiple confessions and let your fellow werewolves know the roles of the people you checked. It is advised that you only do this when you know you will surely be voted out by the village.
• Werewolves as the Baker: By the 3rd day (and sometimes the 2nd) you are already under a lot of suspicion, you need to take an active role in throwing the suspicion someone else's way as you will soon become the most untrusted person in the village
• Werewolves as Mistress: You can try to kill vagabonds so that you may have the advantage of forbidding people in the late-game.
• Werewolves as Chatelain: You can try your best to keep your chatelain token for as long as possible. Sometimes you should forbid people claiming EV so it looks as though you are a villager. Sometimes you can decide they are not worth a save, which will auto-pin you as the werewolf.

Ordinary Villagers:

• This character should take a more active role in finding werewolves.

The Fortune Teller:

• You can drop very subtle hints throughout the game. They shouldn't be so obvious that wolves can pick up on it but it should be just enough that if you die early people can look back and see if you dropped a hint
• It is important that you do not accuse people even if you suspect them. When you die, village will assume the person you have accused is 100% wolf.
• Tell others who you will check if you are the sheriff. If good pass to target, else pass to someone else.
• If you reveal yourself too early, you leave the village, to find the remainder of the wolves on their won
• Try not to reveal yourself until it is very important to do so. Count the players who are still alive. If you see that you will be outnumbered the next day, you should reveal the information you have. If there are 3 wolves, you need to reveal yourself 8 or less alive players. If there are 2 wolves, reveal yourself if there are 6 or less alive players. If there is 1 wolf, reveal yourself if are 5 or less alive players.
• If there is a bartender, check him on the first or second night. If you see that he/she is safe you can keep silent about your role. Players will perceive your silence as the bartender being safe

The Witch:

• This character becomes more powerful at the end of the game – do not waste your potions!
• After you heal someone you should reveal yourself and the saved villager.
• Try not to use your poison until the night you know you will die. Keep it for as long as you need to.

The Hunter:

• If there is a bartender in the game, you may consider that you are possibly the last line of defense against the bartender (assuming pyro, raven, witch or barber token are no longer in play)

The Little Girl:

• If the fortune teller reveals themself, it can be a good strategy to take a big peek in the night before werewolves get a chance to kill the fortune teller.
• If you are Little Girl who is in love, it is suggested that you do not peek at all at night.

Cupido:

• You are powerful against lovers. Often lovers do not want you in the game, in the same sense that werewolves would not want FT. If you suspect that someone you put in love is a werewolf you should try to get them voted out. In most games, you cannot reveal who you put in love so if you have suspicions about a particular lover, you can try to get the village to follow you in voting them out but never explicitly say or hint that you placed them in love
• Don't start accusing lovers so early in the game. It is possible that they are both safe villagers and you may be possibly heling the wolves to kill 2 villagers in 1 go.

The Thief:

• If you pick werewolf, you should pretend to be the role you left out and take full advantage of the village not having that role in the game

The Sheriff/Captain:

• The FT Pass Trick: By day 2, you can utilize the FT-Pass trick. The FT will give their information and the village will vote for whoever is the captain. That captain then passes their captain to the Fortune teller. Before then, the Fortune teller will say who they will check, when the FT dies, they will pass that token to to the player they check if they are safe. If they are wolf, they will pass it to someone else.

The White Werewolf:

• You can pretend to be the witch and say you will try to poison a werewolf. Then you eliminate one. If the witch also used the poison, you can say you accidentally poisoned the wrong one.
• If you are a barber, you can use this chance to eliminate a werewolf.

The Pyromaniac:

• If you want to burn on the first night, choose the baker, barber or bailiff. Do not choose the barkeep.
• If you want to burn later on, you can burn the house with the fortune teller or the little girl.

The Raven:

• Don't feel as though you should use your poster ability everyday. Sometimes when you poster someone, you can be helping the wolves to vote out villagers by day. Only poster when you are absolutely sure
• You can continuously place poster on the bartender until they are confirmed safe. This will make it easier for village to vote out the bartender if they need to.
• You can also place a poster on the chatelain. This is not so detrimental as they can save themselves if they need to.

For those So-called Theories

• There are some so-called theories among players, eg:
• The fortune teller theory: If the fortune teller dies on the first night, the person to his right is usually a werewolf.
• The pyromaniac theory: If the pyromaniac burns and fails to burn a werewolf, the person to the right of the burner is usually a werewolf.
• In my opinion, those theories are usually false logic. They might be events of large probability, but they are not reliable as they are usually based on conclusion rather than in game progress.
• Therefore, I highly not suggest any player to believe in any of the above theories.

Language Between Players

• ww: Werewolves
• ov: Ordinary Villager
• ev: Extraordinary Villager
• ft: Fortune Teller
• lg: Little Girl
• cupid: Cupido
• cap: Captain/Sheriff
• www: White Werewolf
• pyro: Pyromaniac
• vaga: Vagabonds
• cow: Farmers
• shield: Lord
• bt: Bartender
• claim: Tell your role to others
• shave: Barber eliminate a villager

Common House Rules

• Thief must take Werewolf if possible (or has to swap)
• Secret lovers
• No talk at night (or without game info) or spamming
• Silence when hunter shoots
• No host-killing first night
• Anyone who violates the rules are red thumbed

All above content edited by User: Ariel Friedrich Gauss

HOSTING

I see a lot of new hosts lately, and some who don't know about some features, so I want to write up a guide for hosting. Some is just my opinion, so take what you find useful, modify as you wish, and host well!

SETTINGS

This is the first thing you do, everyone will do it different.

Players: Recommendation is either 12p or 8p (some suggest 9) Any other number will be unbalanced.

Speed: often overlooked, but you should use FAST speed

Table restrictions - most people limit to average and above. If you do allow beginners, I suggest making sure they at least can and WILL communicate with the players at the table, (I also recommend using the language restriction) and don't allow more than 1 or 2.

Reputation: given the nature of the game, I suggest no restriction or 50%. Lots of good players have their rep score cratered because they play WW.

Roles: Everyone will argue about which to use, but the rules and guidelines I have found suggest that special roles be equal or less than the number of wolves.

I STRONGLY suggest using captain to alleviate BGA bugginess. It gives players time to get the table to load. It really sucks when you miss your turn as FT or thief because the table wouldn't load and the game went straight to n1. Witch CAN be used in village with no other evs except raven or cupid (with a self-love house rule).

I personally never use more than one of hunter(w raven)/pyro(w raven)/witch. I find these to be more balanced than the typical hunter/pyro/thief settings.

I personally never use thief because even with a "take ww" house rule, too many games end up with only 2 wws.

I also suggest switching role settings from game to game to add variety.

You also need to consider your house rules when setting roles. Thief and Cupid are the roles you most often need to set house rules for, so you need to decide what you will do if you plan to include them, and make appropriate adjustments to rule inclusions, for game balance, e.g "thief take ww."

Cupid in love alleviates any other cupid house rule, and helps balance the game by effectively not allowing cupid to claim, and more often seems to create a third team of ww/cupid than traditional use.

I know I'm in the minority on role settings, but these are my opinions and my reasons for using them, backed by experience of hosting hundreds of games. I hope you'll consider them.

If you have unusual house rules, you should put something in the presentation box (Below the roles list - click 'modify') when setting up the table.

FILLING THE TABLE

There's more to being host than just being able to choose the settings and make the house rules. You have taken on the responsibility of creating a game for 11 other people. Now you need to find them.

USE THE SUGGESTION LIST: below the list of players at the table, is an icon that says "xx players available for this game". Click that and you will get a list of players who have WWs in their favorite games. Using this list sends a notification to the player.

DO NOT USE INVITE UNLESS YOU ALSO MESSAGE THAT PLAYER. Invitations do NOT give the player a notification, so most of the time they will never know you invited them.

You can also use the 'Discuss' button in a WW group, or the 'General Chat' to advertise your table.

STARTING THE GAME

You should post your house rules while waiting for people to accept. Especially if you have unusual house rules - don't trap people into a game they don't want to play. BE PATIENT ... this BGA, which stands for Buggy ... people may need to refresh multiple times before they can accept. BE FIRM .. you are the host, YOU make the choice on how long to wait .. if others decline because they don't want to wait 30 seconds, consider expelling them (after a warning). It usually takes time to fill a table, so give everyone time to accept. 60-90 seconds is reasonable, without being excessive. Don't rely on the offline indicators - they are notoriously inaccurate.

GAME

Keep your house rules simple and concise. The longer your HR post, the more likely it is to be ignored.

While killing the host n1 is generally rude, if you have a Token like Bailiff, Confessor, Barber, or Bonesetter or are Captain you are a valid target for the wolves, and should stick around even if you are killed n1.

REMATCH

Give everyone time to accept. The other players are quite likely to be conducting postmortem for the previous game.

Again, don't rely on the offline indicators - they are notoriously inaccurate. Also, if BGA indicates a player is in another game, THIS IS NOT NECESSARILY TRUE - it will show that way if they are WAITING at another table as well. If you are waiting on only a few players, try to PM them before expelling. Also, a neat trick is to start the game and then decline immediately .. this removes players who haven't accepted, without blocking them from rejoining (hat tip: Monyan).

HAVE FUN. Hosting can be enjoyable, as you get to experiment with different settings, but you're also taking on a RESPONSIBILITY to the other players to provide a fair game and a fun environment.

Hosting guide originally by Razz (talk)