How to play Werewolf, Mafia or Traitors
One game under three names — the rules are identical, only the words change. Pick whichever
one your table argues is the real one.
- Everyone joins on their own phone and taps their own name. Tap the face-down card and it
tells you, privately, whether you are one of the villagers or one of the
wolves — and hands you any special role or token you have been given.
- Night. One phone, chosen at random each round, reads the instructions aloud.
Everyone closes their eyes and keeps tapping their phone, so the room cannot hear
who is doing something. The wolves choose their victim on their own screens, and the Seer
and Doctor act at the same moment. Nobody else's screen shows anything unusual.
- Morning. Only the person who was taken sees it — their screen turns, and they hold
it up. Everyone else finds out by looking at them.
- Day. Argue. Then everyone votes at once, secretly, and the votes are revealed
together so nobody follows the room.
- The village wins when every wolf is gone. The wolves win the moment they equal the
villagers in number — they do not need to outnumber them.
The two sides
Wolves know each other from the first night and see each other's choices while they
pick. Everyone else starts knowing nothing but their own card. That asymmetry is the game:
the wolves' problem is talking like someone who does not know, and the village's problem is
that its only evidence is how people talk.
The two special villagers
Both are optional and both are switched on before the deal. They are always on the village
side, and neither can be turned by a recruiting wolf.
- 🔮 The Seer — each night, look at one person and the app tells you, truthfully,
which side they are on. It is the strongest information in the game, which is exactly why
saying so out loud makes you the next victim. Your reading appears in the morning behind a
tap, so you choose when to look at it. If you are killed, it dies with you.
- 🩺 The Doctor — each night, protect one person. If the wolves attacked them, they
live and the morning says nobody died. You are never told whether it worked, so a quiet
morning might be your save or might be the wolves choosing somebody you did not cover.
You may protect yourself.
The tokens
Optional, dealt face down at the start, and only ever to the village side — a shield
on a wolf would be a wasted token, since nobody attacks them at night. Nobody is told who
holds what. You may hold more than one, or none at all.
- 🗡️ Dagger — your vote counts twice, every day, for as long as you live. The
verdict shows the totals but never who voted for whom, because printing both would say
whose vote was doubled.
- 🛡️ Shield — the first attempt on your life fails and the token is spent. You are
told, privately, that they came for you. Nobody else is.
- 🎭 Mask — at the start you were shown one other player's identity, at random. You
know one true thing that nobody knows you know.
- 🏮 Lantern — once, during any day, prove what you are. The app displays it beside
your name on every phone, so it cannot be faked or misquoted. Spend it too early and it
is wasted; hold it too long and you are voted out with it in your pocket.
Recruiting
Off by default. With it on, a wolf left alone may spend a night turning a villager
instead of killing one — nobody dies, and that player wakes up on the other side and is told
so privately. It is the last wolf's way back into a game they are losing. The Seer and the
Doctor cannot be turned.
The details that come up
- A tied vote banishes nobody. The day ends, night falls, and the wolves get another
one — so a deadlocked village is a village losing.
- The wolves must agree. Their picks are tallied; if they split, the first choice
made wins, which is as close as an app gets to "they argued and one of them moved
first".
- Whether the dead are revealed is a setting. With it off, nobody ever learns what
the banished were, and the argument never gets a clean answer.
- The dead keep tapping and say nothing. Their phone shows them nothing new.
- Nobody moderates. There is no host and no phone in charge, so everybody plays.
An example
Eight play, with two wolves. On the first night the wolves
both tap Priya. But Priya was dealt the shield, so in the morning everyone's
screen says the night passed without a death — and Priya alone is told she was attacked and
survived. She now knows something nobody else does: she is not a wolf, and the wolves know
where she is. Saying so proves nothing to anyone and paints her for the next night. Saying
nothing leaves the village a day behind. That decision, with nothing but talk to settle it,
is the whole game.
5–20 players · 20–45 minutes · suggested from age 12 · free, no sign-up, and nobody has to sit out to moderate.