Werewolf: Kill the quiet people!

Well, today I had the opportunity to be the storyteller in a game of Werewolf at our L.A. Times gaming lunch. Having played as a werewolf in the last three games in a row, I figured the villagers were going to kill me in the first round anyway, so why not be the moderator and break my streak? Today, we went down to two werewolves, after three werewolves have won every one of the last 4 games, with 10-14 players total. I'm promoting a handicapping strategy similar to what we use in Go. Basically, the villagers are trying to handle as many werewolves as possible. So, if one side wins 3 games in a row, you increase or decrease the number of werewolves by 1. As the moderator, I got to immediately see what role each player had, from the very beginning. So I got to see the seer accuse the one person she knew was a villager in the first round! I thought this was a clever ruse at the time, but in hindsight, the only person she fooled by this was a villager. Oh, well. I guess that's my "werewolf logic" showing through! Anyway, to the point: The villagers lost again. However, if they had stuck to the rule of "kill the quiet people first", they would have won. Why? The werewolves were quiet. Now, pay attention because I think this next bit is the thing people haven't been getting: If you have a policy of "kill the quiet people", you force the werewolves to participate! Werewolves are liars, and when you're a liar, you don't want to draw attention to yourself. So if the villagers show that they're intent on killing quiet people, the werewolves have no choice but to participate in the conversation. By smoking them out in this fashion (and not letting quiet people off because "we don't think that person is really a werewolf"), you force the werewolves to participate, and you might catch them in a lie. Update: I remembered what's so clever about the seer accusing an innocent person. It fools the werewolves, who are looking to kill the seer as quickly as possible. Bonus points if the seer gets a quiet person in this fashion, because that helps to flush out the wolves. While they're off the scent of the seer, the seer can continue to gather data about everybody.

Gaming Lunches at the LA Times

As a shameless promoter of the game of Go, I'm always trying to get my co-workers involved in the game. After talking to Reid, one of my co-workers, about various games that we enjoy playing, I decided to set up a weekly gaming lunch. The idea is pretty simple:

1. Use Doodle to set up polls to choose a time and a game.
2. Schedule a conference room for the weekly game.
3. Order lunch for people.
4. Have fun!

I'm proud to say that Go won the first week and consistently comes in second. The most popular game? Werewolf, introduced to our group by Giles Bowkett. It's apparently very popular at Ruby conferences, and our group has lots of fun with it too. Me? I like it because it excites people in a way that Go doesn't, and it keeps the lunches popular. And once in a while people decide to move on to something else, which means I get to introduce more people to Go. What can I say?