Tol-in-Gaurhoth (Isle of Werewolves)

[The Barrow-Wight]

After Sauron captured Tol Sirion and occupied Finrod’s fortress of Minas Tirith, the surrounding region became infested with horrifying creatures in the shape of wolves. These cunning beasts could take the form of man or elf by day, but at night they would change into ravenous monsters, thirsty for blood and death. Together, groups of Sauron’s werewolves would infiltrate a small village and kill off its population one by one.

Welcome to Barrow-downs Werewolf.

Werewolf is a game of accusation, deduction, lying, reverse psychology and bandwagoning. Moreover, it's a lot of fun. It is actively played on several sites on the Internet, and I thought it would make a fun addition to the Downs.

The rules are pretty simple: The players represent a village, and each member of the village has a role, which is kept secret. Most players are ordinary villagers, but two or more are werewolves, and one is a seer. The goal of the villagers is to eliminate all of the werewolves. Likewise, the goal of the werewolves is to eliminate the villagers, which they can do if the number of non-werewolves is equal or less than the number of werewolves.

Gameplay
The game consists of two different phases: Night and Day. The game begins with a Night phase.

Night
In a Night phase, the moderator will ask the werewolves to choose a villager to eliminate and also ask the seer to choose one player to dream about. The werewolves should decide amongst themselves using the board's PM (private message) function who their victim will be and inform the moderator of their choice. Each werewolf should PM the moderator either the group choice of the victim OR which wolf to whom they've proxied their choice. The seer should decide who his victim will be and inform the moderator of his choice.

The werewolves' victim is dead, but the rest of the village won't find out until daytime who the victim is and what their secret role was.

The seer's victim has his role revealed to the seer only.

Day
During the daytime the villagers all wake up and find that one of their own has been killed by the werewolves. At this point at least one player is a werewolf and so someone is gonna get lynched.

During this phase all players, including werewolves who have assumed villager form, must publically discuss their suspicions. Eventually it will reach a point where villagers start to cast votes for who they feel is a werewolf and must be lynched. At least half of the villagers must agree on a player for a lynching to occur. Players can change their vote as much as they wish but once a pseudo-majority is reached, that player is gone and his secret role is revealed. Also, be nice to your moderator and make your vote stand out by bolding it.

If no majority is reached as a result of more than two players accumulating votes, then a runoff is held and the two highest vote-getters are on the block. Anyone who didn't vote for them originally must now choose between the two of them to determine which person will be lynched. If there still isn't a majority by then, a tiebreaker is used. One of the players at risk places a dagger in one of two boxes, and the other player chooses one of those boxes to open. If the box with the dagger is opened, that player is killed.

When the lynching is done all the villagers go back to their homes to sleep and the next night begins.

Winning
In case it's not clear: The villagers win if they kill all of the werewolves. The werewolves win if they kill enough villagers so that their numbers are equal. At this point the werewolves can openly rise up and slaughter the rest of the villagers.

Discrepencies

• Absent voters: In most games once a majority is reached the game continues on from that point. However, it could happen that a player does not vote when prompted for one. A warning will be applied for the first infraction and a phantom vote will be applied for each subsequent infraction. A phantom vote is just an extra vote cast against the absent player(essentially he is voting for himself) in order to make it easier for the crowd to lynch that player.
  
• Compromising privacy: You can say you're a villager/seer/werewolf, etc. all you want, but under no circumstances should you post anything that would give your claim absolute credibility. You are not allowed to post any PMs or other private conversation between yourself and the game moderator. Infractions of this rule are grounds for immediately disqualification from that game and all future games.
  
• Outside interference: Once you are killed in a werewolf game you should no longer post in the thread or communicate with players that are still alive in the game. You're dead. Dead people tell no tales.
  
• Private messages: A major cause of contention is the ability for people to PM each other and thereby keep other players in the dark about this private communication. Since there is no way to enforce, let alone verify an occurance, PMing other players shall not be expressely disallowed. However, it should be a common understanding that the game is more fun for everyone when all communication is available for everyone to see, and thus villagers are discouraged from PMing each other. Besides, would you believe that someone was the seer just because they said so? Werewolves are encouraged to PM each other and agree on who they will kill during any time of the game as this will speed up Night phases.

Our First Game
Barrow-Downs Werewolf will operate in a day/night cycle, with Day lasting from midnight until 6:00 PM, and Night lasting from 6:00 PM until midnight (all times are Eastern Standard Time). Votes cast at 6:01 or after are invalid and will be ignored.

Everyone can post a vote for lynching at any time, and can switch their vote to someone else at any time. I would ask that everyone BOLD their votes so that I can find them easily while scanning the thread. Remember, when a player has a majority of votes, he will be lynched.

Wolves and the Seer must PM their special orders to me by midnight each night. PM's recieved after midnight will unfortunately have their content ignored (so send your orders in early!).



We need players!

Want to play?

Respond here on this thread.

Our game will begin at 6PM (EST) on the first day that we have at least 12 players enrolled. When we have 12+ players, I will be the moderator and will randomly assign these roles:

3 Werewolves
1 Seer
9 (or more) Villagers



There will only be one game of Werewolf running on the Downs, and I will be moderating it. If you want to play, sign up for this game.