The Village Premise

The premise is simple...

I have a group with a total of about 25 kids, 10 minutes a day, 5 days a week. 

On any given day, most of them will be there and some of them won't. It can be pretty random which kids are there on each day, but there is almost never all of them present at the same time.

Some of the kids don't want to play a game, and a couple may actively resent being forced to play (in the situation I've been working through, two students are actively trying the sabotage the game). 

The game is played out over several days, weeks even. So rather than a 20-30 minute turnaround on each cycle, the game has a drawn out melodrama... which also means that it can feel particularly unfair for those players who get eliminated in the earliest rounds.

So I need to accommodate for all these things... above and beyond the regular requirements of a social deduction game.

I'm going with the basic framework of "Werewolf/Mafia". One quarter to a third of the players will be secretive predators among the others. I'm handing slips of paper to each of the players every day... all they have to do is write something onto the sheet of paper. So unlike regular games I've played that generally have a "day phase" where everyone may talk to each other and a "night phase" where everyone does their dirty deeds, the "night" is consolidated into a five minute block where everyone writes their notes, I enter them into an excel spreadsheet, and display the results at the front of the classroom next time we hand out the slips of paper.

The first session I handed out the sheets, I realised that it was easy to work out who was someone "special" in the game (a werewolf, or regular townsfolk with a special power), because these were the players writing something down. So the first amendment came with the second round in the game. I'll get back to this.

Other issues, one of the werewolves decided that she didn't want to play, and melodramatically asked out loud "who should I write that I'm going to attack?", her friend who was portraying the doctor also decided that she didn't want to play, so no-one in the first few turns has been healed in any way. A few students took a couple of turns to get used to the idea of the game, so things started slow for them. 

Before I go further, I'd probably better explain the range of character types inherent in the game.

Werewolf - Once per turn they may attack someone, by writing the person's name on the card they hand in. They don't have to attack someone, and since we don't have a specific day/night cycle, we don't have the chance to instantly reveal the werewolves to each other as a pack. So things will have to work a little differently. I'm going with the idea that if a single werewolf attacks a "citizen", they cause injury. If two or more werewolves attack the same "citizen" they kill them. If a werewolf attacks another werewolf, they are both alerted to each other's wolfish nature. Generally this should make the first few turns slower than a regular game, as the werewolves need to work out who each other are before they can work together to take down citizens of the village. In later rounds, if enough werewolves know who each other are, they might take down multiple citizens each turn, and this could speed things up (if there are still more than 4 werewolves active in the later pats of the game).

Regular Citizen - Every turn, a citizen may cast suspicion on someone. They write the person's name on their card and hand it in. Any suspicions are lost at the end of the turn, but players are revealed anyone who is suspicious and how many players think they are suspicious (they don't find out who considers them suspicious).

Doctor - During their turn, the doctor may give two different players a medicine that renders them immune to an attack from a single werewolf. This is done blind, and they have no idea who is going to be attacked. If a single werewolf attacks a character who has been given the medicine this turn, nothing happens... if two attack them, they are considered "injured... if three attack them, the player is killed as normal. The doctor is a fairly common role in games like this, I just gave them an extra dose of the medicine each turn because sometimes the role feels a bit underpowered.

Mayor - In a regular game of this type, everyone discusses who they are going to remove from play during the "day" turns. I've basically consolidated this decision making process into the hands of the mayor. The mayor may do one of two things to any character currently considered suspicious. They may kill them (thus removing them from play) or place them in prison (which renders them unable to use any abilities or cast suspicion except on other players in prison). If the mayor is killed, everyone votes on a new mayor the following turn.

Sheriff - The sheriff may place anyone in prison. They aren't limited to players who are considered suspicious (which makes them less restricted than the mayor), but they can't kill anyone (which makes them less powerful than the mayor). The sheriff may nominate a deputy, and if they are killed (by werewolves or by a power-hungry mayor), the deputy becomes the new sheriff.

Escape Artist - In most cases, the escape artist functions just like a regular citizen. However, when they are put into prison by the Mayor or Sheriff, they may escape on any turn... and everyone in prison with them also gets free. It's a potential bit of a soft reboot/reset for the game, as long as the escape artist is still in play.

Psychic - This is another common character in this style of game. For their action, the psychic may focus on a single player by writing a name down on their card. On the following turn, they are told if the target character is a citizen, a werewolf, or a zombie (we'll get to that one next). They may tell someone what they have revealed between turns, but if they tell the wrong person, their role is exposed.

Zombie Noble - The zombie noble is playing a very different game, and basically acts as a third faction in the Village. Every turn they may infect a single target with the zombie virus. This virus remains dormant until the infected person is killed (by werewolves or by the mayor). Once someone with the virus is killed, they awaken as a zombie drone and are able to infect new targets of their own. If the zombies manage to infect everyone, their faction wins the game. If the zombie noble is killed before everyone is infected, their faction cannot win the game.

Priest/Priestess - This role begins secret, and acts as a foil to the zombie noble. They may never be infected, but the zombie noble isn't alerted to their presence if they do try to infect them. If the player in this role reveals themself, they may publicly bless a single player each turn. Blessed players have any zombie infection removed (though they may be infected again later).          

Hunter - The hunter is a werewolf killer. If a single werewolf would injure them, the hunter instead kills the werewolf who attacked them.

In the first turn, the escape artist, the priest, and the hunter didn't cast suspicion on others, so anyone who was careful would notice who wasn't writing things down. Since this potentially exposed those characters, I gave them the ability to cast suspicion too (however the priest/priestess loses this when they reveal themself, at which point they bless people instead).

The way the mayor can be re-elected, the sheriff can appoint a deputy, and the zombie noble can infect anyone (including werewolves), may result in certain characters having multiple roles. There could be a psychic, escape artist or even a werewolf fulfilling the role of mayor or sheriff if the original player had been removed from play. It could seem complicated, but each of the roles functions independently.  

The victory condition for the citizens is to eliminate all of the werewolves and the zombie noble (by killing or imprisoning them).

The victory condition for the werewolves is to outnumber the number of non-werewolves (by killing them).

The victory condition for the zombie noble is to have more zombies under their control than there are other living players in the game. 

There's a lot more moving parts in this game compared to most social deduction games, and the variations probably need to be explored with multiple playtests to see how they hold up. We'll see how things go, I'll report on how things have gone next week.