Overview[]
One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a fast-paced game where everyone gets to be a different role. In the course of only one night and the following morning, the players will determine who among them is a werewolf...hopefully. One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a micro game of the party game Ultimate Werewolf that doesn't need a moderator. There's no elimination, and each game lasts about 10 minutes.
How to Play[]
Just like it’s predecessor, in One Night Ultimate Werewolf each player takes on the role of Villager, Werewolf, or a special Villager Role. The Villager team wants to take down at least one Werewolf to win and the Werewolf team wins if no Werewolves die.
But the biggest differences are that there’s only one night phase and no one dies.
Werewolves also don’t attack anyone during the night, so there’s no death in the morning to help in the deduction. However, there’s still a number of things that can happen during the night because of the special village characters.
Set Up:
As expected, set up is different depending on the number of players (# of villagers, etc.). To start, each player randomly, and secretly, gets a Role card and 3 additional Role cards are placed face-down in the center of the table. Each player looks at their card and then places it face-down on the table in front of them as well. (All Role cards should be in reach of all players.)
Night:
Gotta get the companion app!
During the night phase, players close their eyes while several Roles are called out to do their special actions. The order in which the Roles take there action is important. So either one person calls out the Roles in that order, or you can use the super handy-dandy app.
Never play without the free app. It’s fabulous!
Simply tap on the Roles that you’re playing with and the announcer will run through them in the right order – in a terrific announcer voice and with awesome mood-inducing background noise. The app also includes a timer for the day (discussion) phase.
Day:
Once the short night phase is over, day breaks and players discuss who they believe the Werewolves are. The only rule for the day phase is that players cannot show their Role cards. Players can say and claim whatever they’d like, but they just can’t show their card to anyone.
Vote:
Once the daytime discussion is up, players vote on who to lynch.
Simply count down then players simultaneously point at who they’d like to lynch. Whoever gets the most votes dies and reveals his/her card. If it’s a tie, both players die. If at least one Werewolf dies (or there are no werewolves due to both werewolf cards being in the center of the table), then the Village team wins. If all werewolves survive, the Werewolf team wins.
It’s that simple.
But it’s not.
What’s the catch? The catch with One Night Ultimate Werewolf is that when day comes you might not be who you think you are!
Sample 7-player game. 7 roles handed out and 3 in the center. The deduction begins.
You may spend the night as a peaceful villager and in the morning (after the lynching) find out that you’ve turned into a werewolf. You’ll only find out after the lynching because players can’t look at their card during the day.
It’s the special villager roles in the game that make it fun. And some of the roles switch things around during the night.
One Night Ultimate Werewolf plays 3 to 10 players so not all roles will be in every game. For example, with 3 players, only 6 cards will be in the game and 2 of those will be werewolves. It’s fun to see how playing with a different combinations of roles will mix up the discussions and outcome.
Here are the roles in the order in which they wake up at night to do their actions:
- Doppelganger – (only play with this once familiar with other roles) looks at one other player’s card and does something depending on what he/she sees. (See below after reading other roles.)
- Werewolf – all werewolves open their eyes and look for other werewolves, if there's not another werewolf, the werewolf may look at the card in the middle.
- Minion – is on the werewolf team and opens his eyes to see who the werewolves are by their thumb being up. Werewolves don’t get to see who the Minion is.
- Mason – is on the village team and there will always be 2 (when in the game). They wake up at night to see each other (or see no one if the other card is in the center).
- Seer – is on the village team and may look at another player’s card or at 2 in the center.
- Robber – may choose to rob a card from another player and replace it with his card (looking at his new card). The Robber is on the team of the card he takes or on the village team if he chooses not to take a card.
- Troublemaker – is on the village team and during the night can switch the cards of two other players (without looking at them).
- Drunk – so drunk he doesn’t remember his role. When he wakes up, he simply exchanges his card for one of the cards in the center of the table (without looking at it) and is on that team.
- Insomniac – is on the village team and wakes up in the night to look at his/her own card (to see if the role has changed).
- Villager – is on the village team and has no special abilities and remains asleep all night. Of course, during the day players may want to claim to be a villager…
- Tanner – is not on either team and hates his job so much he wants to die. He only wins if he dies. If the Tanner dies and no werewolves die, the werewolves don’t win, the Tanner does. If a werewolf also dies along with the Tanner, both the Tanner and the Village team win. He also stays asleep all night.
- Hunter – is on the village team and if he dies, the player he was pointing at also dies. He’s another role that stays asleep all night.
Now back to the Doppleganger. When woken up at night he/she may see:
- Villager, Tanner, or Hunter, he is now that role and does nothing else at night.
- Werewolf or Mason, he wakes up with those roles and is on the werewolf team if he views a werewolf and village team if he views a Mason.
- Seer, Robber, Troublemaker, or Drunk, he immediately does that role’s action (keeps eyes closed when those roles are called later).
- Minion – if a minion is in the game the announcer will say to close eyes unless Doppelganger is now the minion and will have the werewolves put their thumbs up. He’s then on the werewolf team.
- Insomniac – after the real Insomniac wakes up, the Doppelganger-Insomniac will wake up and do the Insomniac role.
So as you can see – the special cards can add quite a twist to the game.
After all, if the werewolf isn’t killing someone during the night it’s great to have other roles taking nighttime actions to help feed the discussion and deduction once day comes.
Revisions and Expansions[]
Links and References