Werewolf Classic Rules Amendment

[DungeonMaster77]

For those of you familiar with the rules of Werewolf Classic, this is a Poll you want to participate in, especially if you are going to participate in Werewolf Classic IV. The following is a discussion on a rules amendment that will be applied for future Werewolf Classic games. However, in the interest of fairness, I am putting forth a poll, to see what the Werewolf Classic community wants to do, in regards to this rule, for the upcoming game Werewolf Classic IV.

By DM77
Hey All,

I have a question: How have we been playing the Devil role? Have we been ruling that the Werewolves know who the devil is and visa versa? I have found some info that says the Devil doesn't know who the werewolves are and the werewolves don't know who the Devil is. I think that I am going to go with this as 1) It makes for an interesting game. The devil is steering votes to kill villaigers, but at the same time trying not to look like the Seer or Fool, so as to avoid getting themselves killed at night. 2) The Devil will have to be more careful as to who they give info to. The Devil may end up trusting the Masons, thinking them Werewolves, only to get himself killed. 3)The Seer and Fool are going to have more fun, possibly even going as far as to trick them into killing the Devil, posing as the Devil, granted, only to get themselves killed, but not before being able to leak the identities of the werewolves to the town. 4) The werewolves will have to be careful with whom they get information. Trust the wrong person and scenario #3 can happen!

What do you all think?

By Castaras
Set that up in a new genre of Werewolf. Keep classic straight for the moment.

By Kyrian
As a villager, I'd say yes. As a wolf or devil, no. In my opinion it'd give the villagers an unfair advantage. The wolves would pretty much be flying blind the whole time.

By Joosbawx
I would say that would belong more in a non-Classic version of WereWolf...however, I'm totally willing to try it, too.

By DM77
Well, to answer both of you: 1) This is in the original werwolf game 2) Don't the villagers "fly blind" with regards to the Seer? The Seer has to prove themselves, and so the Devil would as well.
Edit: Also, I think it must be said that the Devil is a complete and different role. It is not an "advanced werewolf."

By Korith
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyrian
The wolves would pretty much be flying blind the whole time.

Interestingly enough, they wouldn't.

I could see this as happening in a game where there were fewer, or no masons to begin with. Loss of wolf-side information would be balanced with a loss of villager-side information.

The wolves still know each other, and this is their primary advantage. The loss on their part is that they no longer have a reliable source of information for themselves. Still, they hold the edge in terms of knowing who isn't a wolf, save for one - the devil.

I'd personally be okay playing in this format, and it certainly makes more sense with the original "the wolves sometimes kill the devil" claim (WWCII revised aside. Ouch, Gezina )

Still, I think any significant revision to the classic rules needs to be run by the classic players. Some are there because it's werewolf, some are there because it's the format they like more than others, and some are there because it's pure werewolf. They're the ones who it needs to be taken up with. (Myself, being one, has spoken)

By Atreyu the Masked Llama
I saw go for it. It may seem like the villagers have an advantage, but the wolves have won the majority of our games, the past month of April excluded. Plus, I trust DM 77's judgement.

By Raldor
It's a tough call. I've read a few articles somewhere on how various roles affect the game, and I believe having a seer, baner and masons actually pushes the game very strongly in the villagers favor. We've just had a lot of games where the wolves have found the seer early. The fool only marginally weakens the villager side. Separating the wolves and Devil makes good sense, but from a game balance perspective I think its better to have them all known. You could counter-balance by having less masons, but I'd rather allow for as many people as possible to have roles.

By DM77
Okay, I'll post this revision of the rules in the WWC IV recruiting thread, and see what they think. I will, for sure, include this as a permanent revision in all future WWC games, but for the current game that is coming up, I will just put it to a vote to see who is in favor of the 'new' rule. I'll keep you all posted.

Also, as for the number of Masons, I have always used a number that is 3/5 the number of the werewolves (to include the Devil) rounded down. So, if there are 9 werewolves and 1 Devil, there would be 6 Masons. I used this template for the first WWC game run on these boards.

This is why:

To have a Baner, Seer, and the Villagers, as Raldor has said, the Fool only marginally weakens the villager side's advantage, and victory does favor the Villagers. This is why the concept of the Devil was introduced, to balance this. The Devil's and werewolves knowledge of each other greatly increases the odds for the Werewolves, as I have seen in recent games, and even the game I was a player in. Therefore, I think the Devil should not know the identities of the lycanthropes. It tips the balance too much in favor of team werewolf.

Here are your answer choices:

1) Yes, implement the new rule.
2) I don't know what I want to do.
3) I am undecided.
4) No, I don't want this rule implemented for Werewolf Classic IV.

[Rumda]

from a balance point of view this seems an excellent idea, but adding variant rules to the classic game just defeats the point of having a separate classic game to begin with. So as much as the game needs to be balanced we need to keep the classic game just that.

[DungeonMaster77]

As I had said, this is not a 'variant' rule, and that this rule was part of the original werewolf classic game, but due to an oversight by myself, when I started that game here, never made that clear. That is why this has caused such an uproar.

[Atreyu the Masked LLama]

I think it sounds fun. Gameplay is nice, balance is good, but ultimately I'm utility driven.

[Supagoof]

Go for it. I think we all may have a different idea of what the original gameplay is supposed to be anyway. I, for one, have always played the game with friends where the roles are only revealed with the lynchings, not with the werewolves. It always kept the suspense about whose who, and allowed for more trickery, as anyone could say that they were a particular role.

In a game with no devil or fool, it's quite fun. Example.

Player 1, with a number of fingers pointed at them, "This is a mistake. I'm the BANER."

Player 2. "That's a lie, cause I'm the BANER."

Now, the seer hasn't scried either of these players. It leaves it open as to whom you believe, and who is lying to save themselves. Makes for better days and greater arguements.

Anyways, I digress. Sure, let the Devil try to find the Wolves, and that possibility remain that the seer/devil may pull the wool over your eyes. More trickery = more fun, and I'm all for more fun.

[Shadow]

I agree with everything that Supagoof has said and can add a possible variant rule.

There are 2 Seers at the beginning of the game (instead of the usual one). Three if you include the Fool. The first time that one of them scries a wolf, they are in fact bitten instead and become the Devil. This leaves the possibilty that the Fool becomes the Devil, making for a REALLY fun and confusing game for the wolves. Granted, they're almost assured to lose this game, but it would be a TON of fun!

[edit]
Actually, in reflection, the thrid Seer (lets call him The Gifted) has a 50% chance of gaining a correct result.
He's not the Seer, but he's not the Fool. He's somewhere in between. A large prtion of how the game ends up getting decided will depend on which one of the three scries a wolf first.

In the previous scenario, It would be a huge advantage for the villagers if the Fool scries the first wolf, without any offset for the wolves if the Seer scries a wolf first. Doing it this way would fix that problem.

[Vespe Ratavo]

I agree with everything that Supagoof has said and can add a possible variant rule.

There are 2 Seers at the beginning of the game (instead of the usual one). Three if you include the Fool. The first time that one of them scries a wolf, they are in fact bitten instead and become the Devil. This leaves the possibilty that the Fool becomes the Devil, making for a REALLY fun and confusing game for the wolves. Granted, they're almost assured to lose this game, but it would be a TON of fun!

Ooh! I vote for what Shadow said!

[inky13112]

Oo yeah shadows idea sounds like loads of fun, but its definitely not classic.

Personally I want to give the way classic has classically been played one last try before we adopt true classic.

[evnafets]

No, I don't like that approach so much. Advantage would go too much the wolf way. What would happen if the seer scried the masons, got the list of masons, and then scried a wolf and became the devil?
Not as unlikely as it sounds.

The thing is, the sole purpose of the devil is to root out the seer/baner.
It lets the wolves search two people per night - one kill, one scry.
Once the seer/baner(and other roles) are found the devil might as well be just a regular wolf. Forcing the wolves to find the devil does shift the balance a little. The devil has to find a wolf, and then convince the wolves to trust him! The potential for pretending to be a devil is a nice twist as well.

All in all, I wouldn't be against the change. I have thought the wolf advantage to be quite marked.

Watching the progression over several games though there is a learning curve. You learn how to be a good wolf - the wolves win a few games. Then the villagers learn the traits of a good wolf and so detect them easier. The wolves in the next game learn how to counter detection again - its a continual cycle.

Just my 2 cents.

[Shadow]

As I said, it's a possible variant rule.
As such, I didn't expect, nor do I want it used in the upcoming game. I just threw it out there for future games as a possibilty. Not future WWC games, but future WW variant games.

[The Valiant Turtle]

Actually one of the biggest deciding factors in many of the games is which of the more persuasive players manages to deceive the others into divulging their role.

I've decided I'm against the change. Mostly because I don't think that more trickery = more fun. I think the trickery quotient is already high enough.

[Lucky]

I must admit, I am quite torn on this issue, seeing both arguments for, and arguments against.

On one hand, we have the fact that the werewolves have won a clear majority of the time, and this is a way that might just even things up.

On the other hand, Classic was meant to have consistent rules over many games, and clearly changing it isn't consistent.

Back to the first hand, it seems that there was a mention of this possibility in the original rules by DM77, where he mentions the Devil has been killed by the Wolves from time to time.

Then of course, we clearly have 10 people so far who voted "no," and seeing how late this change was brought up, it seems unfair to those 10 people who signed up before the rule was changed, only to watch as it changes with them unable to do anything about it.



In conclusion, I have no idea which way to go on this one. But I will have no problems with whatever people vote for.

[Thes Hunter]

All in all, I wouldn't be against the change. I have thought the wolf advantage to be quite marked.

Expect in games where I am a wolf and we don't have you killed early.

[Akaziel]

I say go for it. After all, isn't deception what Werewolf is all about?

[The Valiant Turtle]

I actually think the current rules advantage goes to the villagers anyway, especially given the size of these games. This one is rapidly approaching 50 players, can you imagine how hard it should be for the wolves to find the baner and seer? We have just had a lot of games where the wolves found them early, usually by deception. The longer the seer lives the larger the mason list grows. If it grows big enough, the wolves can't win. The fool usually ends up helping the villager because he usually quickly gets onto the cleared list as well. Classic III is how I would normally expect a game to run, and as a wolf in that game we used every trick we could, but the odds of finding the baner in such a huge group were against us.

[DungeonMaster77]

Wow, I expected discussion, but wow...

This discussion has brought up, in my mind, a few good points for the opinion that this rule should not be effective for the upcoming game, and it comes from one of my closest friends in this Werewolf community, Lucky:

...we clearly have 10 people so far who voted "no," and seeing how late this change was brought up, it seems unfair to those 10 people who signed up before the rule was changed, only to watch as it changes with them unable to do anything about it.

With this idea, which I have (believe it or not, and yes, I know this 'is just a game') lost sleep about, I will not make this rule effective for this particular game of Werewolf Classic, however, I want to make it clear, that this will be effective for future editions of Werewolf Classic, as I had previously said, this is a rule that was part of the original rules, as Lucky also pointed out, and I to hold to the original rules, and give the villagers a fighting chance. I will post this same info on Werewolf Central and on the WWC IV recruiting thread.

[xcxcxc]

when do we play

[DungeonMaster77]

Soon, look at the recruiting board!