A blog by Jorge Garcia.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Playin' Werewolf

One of the highlights of my trip to Wisconsin was playing in the largest game of Werewolves of Millers Hollow I've ever played.
We ended up having nineteen people in one game.

Werewolves of Millers Hollow is the greatest party game ever. It is the hands down favorite amongst our friends. If you've ever played Mafia, it's the same game only with werewolves (thus better).

The group is divided into Townspeople and Werewolves. The Werewolves kill one townsperson each night. The next morning the Townspeople debate and eventually execute one Townsperson they suspect of being a werewolf. The game becomes a race for the town to find all of the werewolves before the wolves murder everyone in the town.

This version is our personal favorite but you can also find versions called "Are You a Werewolf?" and "Lupus in Tabula." I highly recommend it if you ever have minimum of eight people at your house.


35 comments:

will said...

Sounds a lot like Bang! which is a lot of fun.

Bang! sounds like it's basically the spaghetti western version of Werewolf.

Not having Bang! though, I think I'll order this.

Eugen Caitaz said...

Auuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!Looks interesting, I Play in Mafia! But this game, we don't have in sale!!!
It's remember to me a little about Plants vs Zombies but in real life!!! :)

David said...

Anytime I'm in a large group of people, I ALWAYS do my best to force us to play a game of Werewolves. Definitely the best party game ever. There's an awesome iPhone app that does most of the 'Moderator' work for you, too. I think it's 99 cents, too.

Emilee said...

I love Mafia, but having werewolves instead of gangsters does sound way cooler. Thanks for introducing it to us!

Lisa said...

Dude! Have you seen this...

(Photoshopped pics of Nic Cage as...)

http://niccageaseveryone.blogspot.com/2010/01/nic-cage-as-hugo-hurley-reyes.html

Michelangelo said...

We played Murder In The Dark as kids- essentially the same game. We'd play with 3 or 4 and just keep starting over every 2 minutes.

Grace said...

This game sounds so much fun! I love mafia and you are right werewolves makes it way better.

Topanga said...

Never heard of it but we like to play games so I'm going to keep my eye open for it.

Have you ever played Mexican Train Dominoes or Wizard?

Mexican Train Dominoes is like your standard dominoes game where you have to match up numbers but it's sort of got a twist in that you can play off other people's "trains" and mess them up. Quite a bit of strategy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Train

Wizard is a card game sort of a mix between Hearts and Bridge but it uses a special deck with four cards known at Wizards which trump everything and 4 jesters which will guarantee you lose a trick when you play it. You have to pass three cards to a neighbour and then make a bid on how many trick you'll win. Win the right amount and you make points, get fewer or more than you bid and you lose points.
http://thehouseofcards.com/retail/wizard.html

Unknown said...

Oh man! I love that game. I am, however, the worst guesser ever.

yellowdoggranny said...

if there are 8 people in my house 7 of them better be pall bearers.

Sarah said...

Please promise me you will never breed with Nic Cage. :|

Jennifer said...

I love that game, I've never played werewolf, but I have played mafia. Do you play with detectives? I like being part of the mafia or werewolves.

Bookmom said...

We played Are You a Werewolf with a group of 12 people that included a barely-reading 5-year-old. It was a blast; we played it for hours! I'll have to check out the version you played. I still can't figure out how this 12-year-old kid always knew--I was Moderator a couple of times and he wasn't cheating! He should probably work for the CIA or something when he grows up.

Bookmom said...

@Topanga--we played Mexican Train Dominoes last New Years Day with another set of friends. It's pretty addictive but in a different way.

As long as we're talking games here, one I saw this summer and really want to try is Who Would Win? It's a card game where two teams draw two cards with people or "creatures" on them, real or fictional, and then the moderator draws a third card and they have to argue who would win. It could be Darth Vader Vs. Hilary Clinton at white water rafting. Or Donald Trump vs. Batman at flower arranging. And then people have to vote who has the best argument!

Erin said...

Never heard of that one, but it sounds fun! Might have to give it a try sometime; thanks for the recommendation! :D

Chrissy Conklin said...

Dude. I LOVE this game. It's so much fun because you can be insanely creative with the narration.

And you get to kill all your friends.

Kathi said...

We have Lupus in Tabula and it's a blast! What is the difference between that and your version? I'll have to see if I can track it down online and then round up at least 12 friends!

Jules said...

Wow. It's like that time on Big Bang Theory when Wil Wheton showed up for a show down of Nerd War...

Sarah said...

Have you ever played Settlers of Catan? That is more of a 4-6 person game, but I could see you really enjoying it.

James Hernandez said...

Jorge,

Were you a werewolf or a townsperson, or both?

Unknown said...

I played Werewolf for the first time at our family reunion this summer. It was sooo much fun!

www.kate06.skyblog.com said...

OMG I love this game! I often play it when I go to summer camps, that's a classic ;)
I don't ask you if you had fun... =D

Brian said...

TO answer a bunch of questions:

Lupus in TAbula isn't quite as good as Werewolves of Miller Hollow. The difference lies in how you vote for werewolves during the day. In "Lupus", you nominate people, and then vote yea or Nay on them, in "Miller" it's more chaotic with the moderator announcing the vote at a random time.

I like the Miller version because it gives a feel of a hysterical village lynch mob taking out the Werewolves.

For more info about all board games, go to www.boardgamegeek.com. It's a huge gaming database that you'll be sucked into, and waste a million hours of your time at if you enjoy gaming.

I run a video review site also for gaming, and I'll be sure to get a review of Werewolf out for you to watch

www.gamesoverboard.com

Hope that answers some Questions. It's great to know that celebrities love gaming too.

Tiffany NoƩlli said...

Game nice! Surely you've been up late playing it... ;)

annebeth said...

Best game EVER :D
DO you know there is an expansion set? Pretty funny, you have to pick sort of a chance card each day, and on it it says something like: everyone who uses the word " I" or "Wolf" during the debate cannot cast a vote.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/21713/new-moon

I play the game with a special group of people I met online, and we only come together in real life to play the game, basically ;) And Munchkin :) So we all are expertes of the game, and we have a few great game leaders, who make up the most wonderful themes around the game, we even have a smurfs team! I don't know why, but Cupido has a tendency to die very quickly ;) We call him cupidead ;)

In Dutch it is called Weerwolven van Wakkerdam

You can even play werewolves online, which is a tad more difficult to manage...

Scott said...

DudE!! That sounds sooo fun!!! Thanks for the post!

Scott said...

DudE!!! That sounds so fun! Thanks for the post... me and the family will be trying this out on your suggestion.
Scott in Phoenix

dequesi said...

Great! I love this game! I once played it at a Youth Fair with some 30-40 people, now THAT was wild ;D

But it definitely works best with parties of around 7 to 14 people.

I love being the narrator and improvising all kinds of villages to make the discussions a little different each time ;-)

Oh, and this is definitely not like Bang! (as will suggested on comment 1)

The Warp said...

This is a version of Werewolf I created that is based on LOST: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/41591/lost-live-together-die-alone-version-of-ww

It includes a special deck of roles called "The Purge Deck", which you draw from when you get eliminated... thus, you are never eliminated from the game and can keep playing. That site has the rules, and a link to get the cards.

kerenl said...

sounds great!
fun fun fun

gracie lou said...

I am a member of several Mafia forums. It is quite addicting and takes around a month to complete a single game. Each game has a different theme: Lost, The Simpsons, Buffy, Werewolves...just to name a few. Oddly, I have never played in real life, though.

Manja said...

I just stumbled on your blog....and yes, that game is the.best.group.party.game.EVER. I guess you play it all over the world because I am german but I have also played it in the Netherlands. We mostly do the mafia version, though. Last year, my friend had a mafia - themed birthday party. We usually play with tons of extra roles and s there were many epic costumes - I was Cupid. Fun times.

be_nice said...

Hey
Cool that you play that :)
I admit I'm curious to know if you survived :p

FYI there are some potential adds:

1 - Hunter. There to kill the werewolf, and I think can do a pre-emptive strike in the night on someone they think is a werewolf (maybe look it up though to be sure!)
2 - Lovers. 2 people are randomly selected (whilst werewolves are being selected) as lovers. So they do the whole 'open your eyes and wave at each other' thing. The lovers will always try and protect each other, but must hide that they are lovers (although of course if one of you is about to get executed that kind of goes by the by). And will stand up for each other in the meetings, always vote to protect them. This is especially fun if either a-one is being dragged off to be executed or b-one is the werewolf :) Maybe look this up too cos I think if one dies the other commits suicide. Guessing you guys get into the rp so yeah - that's def. fun :) Lots of potential emo :p

beloved30 said...

Another FANTASTIC party game is Quelf. You gotta try it! The first time I played I was sore the next day from laughing so hard! I highly recommend it!

Aaron said...

Werewolf is the best game ever!!! It's a good game for camping.