Werewolf game rules and how to play

What is the werewolf game? The 30-second version

Werewolf is a hidden-role deduction game: a few players are secretly Werewolfs, and the rest have to find them by talking and voting. Everyone is dealt a role, and your role is shown to you alone.

The game runs in a loop of day and night. By day the whole table talks and votes one person out — that is a banishment. By night the Werewolf attacks one person, and the Seer and the Bodyguard take their turns too.

Find every Werewolf and the Village win. Let the wolves get to the same number as everyone else and the Werewolves win. No cards, no moderator — the screen deals the roles and runs the night for you.

How to play — one game, step by step

The game is these five steps on repeat. It is the ordinary werewolf order — we have not slipped any house rules in.

1. First night. Everyone looks at their own role. The Werewolfs learn who else is in the pack. Nobody goes out on this night, and by default the Seer gets one look (you can switch that off before you start).
2. Morning. The table sees what the night did: somebody was attacked, or the night passed with nobody lost. The role of whoever went out is never revealed.
3. Day: the talk. Everyone still in the game argues it out. Lying is allowed. So is claiming a role you do not have — or saying nothing about your role at all.
4. Day: the vote. Everyone picks one person other than themselves. The most votes gets banished. On a tie there is one runoff between the tied names; if that ties too, it is settled by lot.
5. Night. The Werewolf picks who to attack, the Bodyguard picks who to cover, the Seer picks who to look at. Each result goes to that player alone.

Then it is steps 2 to 5 again, until one side meets its win condition. At that point the game ends and every role is turned face up.

How the game is won

The wolves do not have to wipe the table out — they only have to draw level, and that is the hinge of the whole game. With four people left and two of them Werewolfs, no arrangement of the day’s votes can bring the pack down any more. The game is called on the spot.

The Minion wins with the Werewolves but is counted on the human side in that arithmetic, because they are not a Werewolf. A table with a Minion in it therefore lasts a little longer.

The Fox and the Lover win in ways that belong to neither side. The Fox wins alone if it is still alive the moment either the Village or the Werewolves meet their condition. By default it is not counted in the head count either, so the wolves’ “draw level” arrives later at a table with a Fox in it.

The Lover is a pair, and they win if both of them are alive when the game ends. Lose one and the other goes at the same moment, whatever the cause, so the whole role is about keeping the two of them in together. If the Fox and the Lover both qualify at once, the Fox takes it by default — you can swap that round in the settings.

Recommended setups for 4–20 players

Which roles you hand out at which player count is the single biggest lever on who wins. The table below is the setup this site actually uses — it is what the settings screen is already filled in with when you open it.

This table is generated by the same code the game runs on (recommendedSetup()). It is also what the settings screen starts with.

• The Seer is in at every player count. Without one the Village have no hard information at all and the vote is a coin flip.
• The Bodyguard comes in at 5. Put a cover in a 4-player game and the wolves miss night after night, which leaves nothing but the day vote.
• The Medium comes in at 7. While there is only one Werewolf, the vote that finds it ends the game there and then, so no night ever comes round for the reading.
• A Werewolf is added at 7, 11, 14, 18 players. Too many wolves and the numbers draw level on day one, so the pack is capped below half the table.
• The Minion comes in at 8. On a small table one more person who reads as human breaks the village’s information completely.
• The Fox, Psycho Killer, Baker, Lover, Nekomata and Hunter are not in this table. None of them is dealt by default, so their columns would be empty from top to bottom. Switch them on one at a time under “more settings” (the Lover takes two seats at once).

These are only starting values: every one of them can be changed. The number of Werewolfs, whether the Bodyguard, Seer, Medium and Minion are in, whether the Bodyguard may cover the same person twice, whether the Minion starts out knowing the pack, whether the Seer looks on the first night — all of it is on the settings screen.

The parts of werewolf that drift from table to table — the first-night look, tied votes, how the lovers win — can be switched over too. They are all in the settings below.

Rules you can change in the settings

Werewolf is a game whose rules drift from group to group. The parts that drift most are on the “more settings” screen before the game starts, so you can match the table you usually play at. The default is in bold.

Settings tied to a role (shown only when that role is in)

• How the Lover wins. Both alive at the end means the lovers win / treat them as Village and keep nothing but the grief.
• Whether the Fox is counted. Not counted / counted. Counting it pushes the wolves’ “draw level” further away, so the game runs longer.
• When the Fox and the Lover both qualify. The Fox takes it / the Lover takes it.
• When the Hunter may shoot. Whatever put them out / only a banishment or an attack / only a banishment.
• When the Nekomata is attacked. The attacking Werewolf goes out too / a random surviving Werewolf / nobody but the Nekomata.
• The Psycho Killer’s revenge. Whether the Seer who looked goes out (yes) and whether the Bodyguard who covered goes out (yes). The attacking Werewolf always goes out — that part is the role itself.
• Whether the Bodyguard may cover themselves. No / yes.

Rules for the whole table

• Covering twice in a row. Whether the Bodyguard may cover the same person two nights running. Allowed / not allowed.
• Whether the Minion knows the pack. No / knows them from the first night.
• The look on the first night. Pick someone yourself / one player who is “not a Werewolf” is revealed at random / no look at all.
• Tied votes. One runoff, then a draw by lot / straight to a draw by lot / one runoff, then nobody is banished.
• Revealing the role of the banished. Hidden / shown to everyone. Showing it makes the Medium worth a great deal less.
• A missing role. Before the deal, one of the roles you switched on is dropped at random and that seat becomes a Villager. Off / on. The Werewolf and the Fox are never the one dropped.
• The discussion timer. 3 minutes a day to start with, and you can play with no timer at all.

The settings are shown to everybody. Nobody ends up playing to a different rulebook by accident — they are on the lobby screen online, and on the setup screen when you pass one phone around.

The words people use (attack, banish, out)

We use the words the werewolf table normally uses. Plenty of groups call the same things something else, so here is a map. Only the wording changes — the handling is the same.

What you should not do

There is no rulebook handing out penalties. There are, though, a few things that stop the deduction from working at all. Worth agreeing on before you start.

• Showing your screen to someone. The whole game assumes your role and your night move are yours alone.
• Telling people who you are outside the game. A private DM, a second voice channel — keep the talking where everyone can hear it.
• Players who are out feeding information back in. Once you are out you can see everything, and a single hint ends the game for everyone else.
• “Let us all just claim our roles.” Not against the rules, but there is nothing left to search for afterwards.
• Going after the person instead of the play. You are suspecting a role, not a friend. When the game ends, put it back on the roles.

And to be clear: lying is not on this list. A Werewolf claiming to be the Seer, a Minion inventing a night result — that is the game being played properly.

Tips for your first few games

There is no winning formula, and it would be a broken game if there were. But there are a few habits that raise a beginner’s win rate straight away.

For the Village

• Say something. A quiet player looks like a player with something to hide. Being wrong out loud is better than being silent.
• With a Seer claim, watch when it came, not just who made it. A real one has a reason to speak early.
• If two people claim Seer, one of them is on the wolf side. Read the people around them rather than the results themselves.
• Say who you are voting for before you vote. That is how you find out whether the table is actually agreeing with you.

For the Werewolf and the Minion

• Do not act like a Villager — be one. Suspect someone for real, and be wrong for real.
• Do not defend the pack. Two wolves shielding the same person is the one place where the table sees you moving together.
• Claiming Seer is the Minion’s job. Nothing can catch you out: you come back as “not a Werewolf” from the real one too.
• Attack the loudest player, not the cleverest one. Take away whoever is driving the discussion and tomorrow’s day phase stalls.

Two ways to play — browser or app

Playing with people who are somewhere else? Open a room on the online version and paste the link into your group chat. Bring your own call — Discord, Zoom, FaceTime, whatever you are already on. There is no public matchmaking with strangers.

The difference is the player count and the chat, not the number of roles. For more than 20 people, or to chat inside the app instead of over a call, the free app Dokopa has rooms for 4〜50 players and a chat for the ones who are out. Rooms are not shared between the app and this site, so pick one before you invite everybody.

Common questions

What is the werewolf game?

A hidden-role deduction game. A few players are secretly werewolves and the rest have to find them by talking and voting. Everyone is dealt a role that only they can see. By day the table votes one person out; by night the werewolves attack one person. Find every werewolf and the village wins. Let the werewolves draw level with everyone else and they win.

How do you play werewolf, in short?

One: everyone checks their own role. Two: in the morning you see what the night did. Three: the table talks it out. Four: everyone votes and one person is banished. Five: at night the werewolf, the seer and the bodyguard each take a turn. Repeat two to five until one side wins. Lying is part of the game, not a foul.

Are there official werewolf rules?

No. There is no single official rulebook. The game began as Mafia, devised in 1986 by Dmitry Davidoff at Moscow State University, and Andrew Plotkin recast it with werewolves in 1997; it has branched at every table since, so the roles and the night handling still differ from group to group. This site starts from the ordinary werewolf rules: 14 roles, 4 to 20 players, one runoff after a tied vote and a draw by lot if that ties as well. The parts that differ from table to table — the first-night look, tied votes, how the lovers win — are switchable before the game starts, so you can match your usual table.

Is this the same as Mafia?

It is the same family of game with different names. Mafia deals a Detective and a Doctor where werewolf deals a Seer and a Bodyguard, and Mafia tables often reveal the role of whoever is voted out. This site uses werewolf naming throughout and keeps roles hidden when a player leaves the game.

How many players do you need? Does it work with four?

Four is the minimum. Four is one werewolf, one seer and two villagers; at five a bodyguard joins them. Three does not work: the numbers draw level as soon as the first vote resolves, so the game is over before anybody has learned anything. The maximum is 20 online, or 12 when you pass a single phone around.

What roles should seven players use?

Two werewolves, one seer, one medium, one bodyguard and two villagers. Seven is where the second werewolf arrives, and the medium comes in alongside it. The minion joins from 8 players. The table on this page lists every count from 4 to 20.

How long does one game take?

Fifteen to thirty minutes. Bigger tables spend longer on the day phase. The discussion timer can be changed before you start; it begins at 3 minutes per day, and you can also play without a timer.

Do we need a moderator or game master?

No. Dealing the roles, handling the night moves, counting the votes and calling the winner are all done by the screen. Nobody has to give up their seat to run the game, so everyone in the room plays.

Can we play One Night Werewolf here?

No. This site runs the full game, with the day and night phases repeating until one side wins. One Night Werewolf, which is decided after a single night and a single discussion, is a different game and is not on this site or in the Dokopa app.

Is it free? Do we need an account?

It is free. There is nothing to install, no account and no sign-in — open the page, pick a player count and start. There are no ads either. There is no public matchmaking with strangers: rooms are for the people you send the link to.