One Night Ultimate Werewolf. A game where identity is secret and where the villagers have one shot at deducing who the monster is.
The primary difference between ONUW and the team’s current strike themed idea is the formal element of state tracking. While ONUW relies on information that can change based on the swapping of roles (dependent on whether the person is being truthful), , our concept focuses on progress tracking through the strike and public support meters. From my perspective of having played two rounds, ONUW does well on focusing on the aesthetics of fellowship through conversation, whereas our concept risks over fitting the mechanics by adding too many meters (something that was confirmed by our TA). This can make the game feel confusing, as we realized that we had too many items that didn’t add to the layer of the game. Additionally, the team played Secret Hitler, and we concluded that the narrative storytelling through the systemic corruptions laid by members (of which lies are spewed), aided in our design of understanding how we could incoroporate missions into our strike themed game; in contrast, ONUW has an explosive chaos that we did not want to incoroporate due to the short nature of the game which wouldn’t fit into our 30+ minute ideal strike game.
In my first session, I played the Troublemaker. The mechanics of this role allow you to switch the cards of two other players without them knowing. I quickly verified my move by listening to two players say their cards had been switched, and I told them it was me. This transparency allowed for the deduction that the people I flipped cards with were not lying, and I myself was cleared of suspicion, leading to a win with the help from the rest of the team. In regards, to this mystery identity, I believe it would be great to use some mechanic of secret identity because it adds to the layer of figuring out who is working against the workers on strike, and seeing if workers can find this “scab” amongst them. This is a work in progress.
The second round revealed the power of social dynamics over evidence. The Werewolf won (–gasp–) because they were in total control of the conversation. They agreed with every deduced step we took, portraying a frustrated player as the villain. The werewolf was a master manupator, making us suspicious of that player’s reaction rather than his actual role. Even when the Tanner, a role that wants to be killed, claimed to be a Werewolf, the actual Werewolf masterfully argued that it would be a terrible mistake to vote for the Tanner. This shifted the target back to the innocent dude. We lost because we followed the narrative the Werewolf built rather than the logic of the roles. All this to say, the goals range from pure deduction to psychological warfare!
When comparing ONUW to Secret Hitler and our strike concept, secret Hitler uses a board to track the rise of power between liberals and fascists. Our initial idea of using a strike meter for workers and a public support meter for boost cards creates a similar legislative vibe. However, we realize that this would make us too similar to the game, and to differentiate from other games, we took inspiration from ONUW in regards of roles with special skills.
Also, perhaps instead of meters, we could use other skill cards played into a hidden mission pool. This would move the game away from tracking and toward deducing who the scabs are. For example, if the Boss or Scabs can influence these missions secretly, the focus remains on the fellowship and the bonds between the striking workers rather than just watching a meter move up and down on a board. This also changes the power dynamic for the Boss. When information is hidden, the advantage shifts to the players who know the truth, creating an environment of strategic ambiguity where the Boss can play positive cards early to build towards the narrative of hope for the workers, and then destroying them.
The ethics of ONUW challenge our social norms regarding honesty and loyalty. In our strike concept, being a Scab or a Boss forces a player to actively undermine the collective action of the group. This creates a brief but intense ethical dilemma of honesty, where lying is permitted and should be embraced to win the game. The design of ONUW, allows for this tense confrontation where suspicion is drawn, and no role overpowers the other. It is truly a deducion based game, where either a single lie can make people be suspicious of you do to a disconnection of roles, or the truth could be misrespented/ignored, or if you have a great team, then you’re THAT synced. Given the way roles are presented, it also allows for chaos to be somewhat controlled through steps of who was what role, and thankfully my group didn’t begin screaming and yelling, so the rounds were fun. And to further add onto the topic of honesty, Secret Hitler further challenges is this by adding the layer of team dynamics and creating greater false narratives, which can stoke more tension between groups (compared to ONUW); contrastingly, there is always one team one-upping each other compared to ONUW where it’s nearly the majority vs the minority. I do enjoy both games, but given the theme is ONUW, I’ll say it’s a well designed game, where fellowship is a priority and no role is meaningless or obscure, adding to the layer of fun when it comes to each round. In such games, lying should be rewarded (e.g. you’re a werewolf) because it demonstrates how important fellowship is when examining the dynamic of a game like this. Lastly, it represents aesthetics of expression, utilizing behavioral psychology by forcing players into risk aversion– Do you speak first and risk being the target, or wait and risk being labeled a SUS person. For our team’s concept, we should see if we can find a way to incorporate these quick rounds, by getting rid of some meters and focusing on the social dynamics of the missions and skill cards, where we can ensure the game remains on the informative nature of strikes and power.
