One Night Werewolf is a social deduction game that is a mod of Mafia. The game is created by Bezier Games and is available as both a physical game and a mobile/web app.
By introducing the boundary of a singular round, One night werewolf condenses and focuses the objectives of Mafia-like games, while keeping all players engaged and a part of the magic circle. Additionally, the game emphasizes social deduction by introducing the mechanic of an automatic game-provided narrator, which lets all players focus on the social deductive aspect.
One night werewolf fixes the issue that standard Werewolf and other games modded from Mafia have: what do the eliminated players do? In Mafia-like games, the eliminated players are essentially pushed out of the magic circle. Furthermore, being the first players eliminated in a large group often leads to a lot of boredom and a worse experience with the game. One night werewolf emphasizes social deduction by shifting the dynamics of the classical Mafia game through the introduction of a new boundary.
I played one night werewolf online, with a group of 5 friends that were all in different locations, while we were all video calling. I think the one round boundary was especially important when playing in a scattered group like ours. Dynamics like meta-gaming often arise in games like Mafia, which is incredibly hard to do when players are not physically close. This generally works in online games’ favor. However, the magic circle is also easier to break out of when it is abstracted as much as it is with online social games. The one-round mechanic of One night werewolf reinforces the magic circle by keeping all players participating throughout the whole game.
The game is relatively quick and includes a night and day phase. Like in Mafia or Werewolf, during the night all players fulfill their roles one by one. Then, during the day players discuss and vote someone out. That’s it, the win condition is who gets voted out. The condensed one round mechanic intensifies strategy and hastens the decision making process, making for a more exciting game. This mechanic also emphasizes the dynamics of bluffing, claiming, or delaying claiming your role that appears in Mafia-like games. Here is a play-by-play of one of my games that perfectly exemplifies this:
I was Werewolf, I looked at one of the cards in the middle and saw it was an Insomniac. I immediately claimed Insomniac when we woke up. Stephanie was Robber and claimed that immediately. Victoria was Seer and immediately claimed that and said that she knew I was the Werewolf. Stephanie then claims that she actually stole Victoria’s card and knows that she was Seer. Everyone was ready to vote for me, there are 2 corroborators. Cameron then pops in and says: “Actually I was Troublemaker and I switched Victoria’s and Andreea’s cards”.
This dynamic of claiming might not have made sense if the game was longer than one round. We have played regular Werewolf and Mafia before, and even with the same players, we do not claim roles as easily as we did in this game. The condensed format of One night werewolf leads to the creation of the dynamic where players are immediately claiming roles. In Mafia, players often do not claim roles until very late in the game, as the stakes seem higher for losing a doctor early game. In One night werewolf, delaying the claiming of a role is usually not possible. Lastly, because of the speed of the game and the mechanic of no elimination, this game lends itself very well to the creation of a strong magic circle, even in circumstances where that is not easily possible (like in ours).
