Class Date: 1/29/2026
This week’s game was Ultimate Werewolf, a social deduction hidden role game. In this game, each player is given a card with a role that belongs to one of two teams, the Villagers or the Werewolves. The Werewolf team eliminates one player each night, and wins when the number of Werewolves is equal to or greater than the number of player on the Villager team. During the day, everyone discusses who they will vote to execute and remove from the game. Each team has a variety of roles such as the Seer (Villager team), who chooses a person each night and learns if they are a Werewolf and the Sorceress (Werewolf team), who chooses a person each night and learns if they are a Seer.
Our class played this game with more than 20 people. The evil team was comprised of 6 people:
- 3 Werewolves
- 1 Wolf Cub
- A Werewolf that lets the werewolves kill twice the night after they die
- 1 Sorceress
- 1 Minion
- Who starts the game knowing which players are Werewolves.
The good team had a large variety of roles, some of which included:
- Villagers
- With no special abilities
- 2 Information Gathering roles (Seer and Apprentice Seer)
- Who have abilities to determine which players are Werewolves
- Multiple Protection Roles (Bodyguard, Priest, Witch)
- Who have abilities that prevent deaths during the night
- Other miscellaneous roles with various abilities
- Spellcaster – Chooses a person who cannot speak during the next day
- Prince – Prevents their first execution
- Cupid – Chooses two players to be lovers at the start of the game. If the first dies, the other dies as well
From the in-class discussion, the most difficult aspect of Ultimate Werewolf for the Werewolf team was collaborating during the night. This was the only time where they could communicate without alerting the Villagers, so they took a while to come to a consensus on who to kill.
For the good team, it was similarly difficult to work together during the day. With the few information gathering roles withholding their information to avoid being killed at night (and an unfortunate spellcaster choice), each day’s execution vote was based almost solely on social deduction on how other players were acting. This is where we saw first follower principle in action. Once one or two people voted for someone, a lot of other players followed with them. This occurs due to people feeling more comfortable joining in on something that they know already is supported by others.
Overall, it was interesting to watch how the game played out. Without any public information, the villagers only managed to remove one unlucky Werewolf who was linked to another character that got executed. With all of the remaining Werewolves and the minion knowing to avoid voting for each other, they were easily able to navigate day and avoid being voted off. One element of the game that is controversial is the player removal, players that were killed/executed early often had little agency in affecting the game and then did nothing for the rest of the time.