In One Night Ultimate Werewolf, each player takes on the role of a Villager, a Werewolf, or a special character. It's your job to figure out who the Werewolves are and to kill at least one of them in order to win....unless you've become a Werewolf yourself.
Unlike many other games, the real fun in One Night is figuring out exactly what happened over that one night, where many of the players performed some sort of special action.
You'II need to figure out what team you're on (because your role card might have been switched with another role card), and then figure out what teams the other players are on.
At the end of each game you'll vote for a player who isn't on your team; the player that receives the most votes is "killed". If a Werewolf is killed, everyone on the village team wins. If no Werewolves are killed, the Werewolf team wins.
The more you play One Night, the more you'll realize how important it is to wait until just the right time to reveal information, and how important it can be to lie, regardless of what team you started on.
Because the game is so short, you'll probably end up playing multiple games. Because One Night is so different, it may take a few games until you get into the flow of figuring out what to say when, and soon you'll realize that events of previous games have an undeniable impact on the current game in terms of how players behave, who they believe, and what their real motivations are.
Components
- 16 character tiles (with twelve unique roles)
- 16 character tokens
- Rulebook with detailed role descriptions
Setup
Setup differs based on the number of players (3-10). For your first game, it's recommended that you play a 3-5 player game to get a quick sense of gameplay (If you have more, don't worry. The game is very quick and everyone else will enjoy watching).
Include the following cards:
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3 players: 2 Werewolves, 1 Seer, 1 Robber, 1 Troublemaker, 1 Villager
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4 Flayers: +1 Villager
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5 Players: +2 Villagers
There should always be three more cards than the number of players. Shuffle the selected cards face down and deal one to each player. Put the remaining three cards and tokens that match all the cards being used in the middle of the table.
Each player should secretly view their card, and place it face down near the three cards in the center of the table. All players should be able to reach all cards easily, as shown in the example for 5 players below:
Night
There are several roles that are called on at night to do a night action. However, players with a Villager, Tanner, or Hunter card never wake up at night.
In addition to having a role card, one player is designated the Announcer and announces each of the roles in order and silently counts to ten after each role is woken up to allow the players with that role to perform their action at night. Use this script with the previously suggested cards:
Announcer: "Everyone, close your eyes".
All players close their eyes (including the Announcer).
"Werewolves, wake up and look for other werewolves".
The werewolves open their eyes and look for anyone else whose eyes are open (there might not be any others).
"Werewolves, close your eyes. Seer, wake up. You may look at another player's card or two of the center cards".
The player with the Seer card opens her eyes and may quietly look at one other player's card or any two of the cards in the center.
"Seer, close your eyes. Robber, wake up. You may exchange your card with another player 's card, and then view your new card".
The player with the Robber card opens his eyes and may quietly exchange his card for another player's card, which he looks at.
"Robber, close your eyes. Troublemaker, wake up. You may exchange cards between two other players".
The player with the Troublemaker card opens her eyes and may quietly exchange the cards of two other players without looking at those cards.
"Troublemaker, close your eyes".
The Announcer, keeping his eyes closed, moves the cards around slightly (this ensures no one can claim a card was moved/inspected because it is no longer in its original position).
" Everyone, Wake up!"
All players open their eyes and look around suspiciously.
At night, players who are not active (whose eyes are closed) may not move, point, or do anything to communicate with the active player(s).
Day
After the night phase, players discuss among themselves who they believe the Werewolves are. All players may say anything, but may never show their card to anyone. Werewolves might want to claim to be a different role so that they don't die.
Because certain roles change other players' cards, some players will believe they are one role, when they are actually a different one. After the night phase, your role is the card that is currently in front of you, which may be different than your original role. No one may look at any cards after the night phase.
After a few minutes of discussion, players vote.
"Everyone, three, two, one, VOTE"!
Each player points to another player.
The player with the most votes dies and reveals his card. In case of a tie, all players tied with the most votes die and reveal their cards.
If no player receives more than one vote, no one dies. One way the players might achieve this is if everyone votes in the same direction around the table, with each player receiving one vote (decide this as a group before you vote).
End of the Game
After just one night and one day...
The village team wins:
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If at least one Werewolf dies. Even if one or more players who are not Werewolves die in addition to a Werewolf dying, everyone on the village team wins.
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If no one is a Werewolf and no one dies.
It is possible for no one to be a Werewolf if all Werewolf cards are in the center.
The werewolf team only wins if at least one player is a Werewolf and no Werewolves are killed.
If you are playing with the Tanner, there are special rules regarding who wins; see the Tanner's role description for details.
Tournament Play
Set up a mini tournament by providing the winners of each game with a poker chip or other small item.
Once any player has obtained a specified number of chips, such as five, the player with the most chips wins.
Continue playing if there is a tie until one player has the most chips. For larger tournaments with multiple games, do a double-elimination style tournament, where players play until they have lost twice.
Using Other Roles
You may use additional roles in your games beyond the basic setup. Just take out a card and replace it with a different one.
You may use virtually any combination of cards, though you probably don't want to introduce more than 1 or 2 new roles at a time, so players can easily understand them.
Regardless of which roles are present, you must always have 3 more cards than players. Before each round, place a token that corresponds to each of the cards near the Announcer.
This way everyone will know what roles are in the game, and the Announcer will know in what order to call them.
Be creative in your role selection: Try having a single Werewolf, or shuffling all of the cards and dealing them out to players entirely randomly! You can even create a village with no Villager cards ...that way everyone has a special role.
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