Werewolf Game Classroom Lesson: A Ready-to-Run Round for Class and Camp

This werewolf game classroom lesson fits one class period. Students argue, listen, weigh evidence and vote, in the language you teach if you teach one. You need your own phone and one phone or tablet per table. Students need no account, and there is nothing to install. Below are the aims, a 20-minute round, the debrief questions and a version for camp.

The game has been here before. Mafia, the game Werewolf comes from, began as a classroom activity: Dimitry Davidoff, a psychology student at Moscow State University, devised it for the high-school pupils he taught, in 1986 or 1987. In his own account, it spread from there to dormitory parties and summer camps. (Andrew Plotkin's page, with Davidoff's account; Wired, 2010.)

Run it with one phone per table: no student accounts, nothing to install

The lesson at a glance

If the class hasn't played before, give the rules in two minutes: one or more players are secretly werewolves (about one in five), they kill one player every night, and every day the village can vote one suspect out. The village wins when every werewolf is dead. The werewolves win once they equal or outnumber everyone else. The complete rules have the rest.

The aims

By the end of the lesson, students can:

• give a reason for a suspicion, and tell a reason from a hunch;
• listen to an argument and answer it;
• change their mind in public when the evidence changes;
• see how a group can be talked into a wrong vote.

In a language class, add one more: accuse, defend and agree in the language you teach, against the clock.

Before the lesson: set up in five minutes

1. Open the game in your phone's browser, type your name and tap Create game.
2. Choose Shared phones. A few phones are enough: every phone shows the same game, and each student takes their secret turn on the nearest one.
3. Join one phone per table with the four-letter code or the QR code on your screen. The student holding it types their name.
4. Add the rest of each table on that table's phone, with Add a player without a phone. First names or nicknames are enough, but names must differ: two Emmas become Emma K. and Emma L.
5. Switch off I'm playing too. Your phone is then only the host and narrator, and you are free to watch the room.
6. Pick Basic, choose Pass the phones for the nights, and in the house rules set the Discussion timer to 2 minutes.
7. Deal. Once at least 4 players are in, tap Deal the roles.

Why Pass the phones in class: nobody has to close their eyes. Each night every living student takes a secret turn on their table's phone, villagers too, so nobody can tell who has a power. A villager picks the player they suspect most, and those suspicions come back in the debrief.

The 20-minute round

Three notes for the teacher:

• Recording the vote. On shared phones, anyone can mark the player with the most votes as out, on any phone. On a tie, the class talks some more and votes again, or nobody leaves today.
• The dead stay silent. Give them a job instead: each one watches a suspect, or notes the best argument of the day.
• Out of time? On your phone, open the game menu and tap End the game, then tap again to end it and reveal the roles.

The debrief: questions to ask

When the game ends, every phone shows Who was who and How it all happened, night by night: whom the werewolves went after, what the seer saw, whom the doctor protected, and each vote. After a Pass the phones night, it also lists every suspicion. Put one phone where the class can see it, or read it out.

1. When did you first suspect a werewolf? What was your evidence?
2. Which argument changed your vote? Was it evidence, or how sure the speaker sounded?
3. Look at night 1's suspicions. Did anyone suspect a werewolf early? Did anyone listen to them?
4. Who was voted out on day 1, and why? Were they a werewolf?
5. Werewolves: how did you hide? Which lie worked best, and why did people believe it?
6. Seer: when did you share what you knew, and what happened next?
7. Where in real life does a group decide with too little information?

In a language class

The whole game is talk, so it works as speaking practice at any level where students can give a reason.

• The narrator speaks seven languages: Finnish, English, Spanish, German, Dutch, French and Polish, each in a recorded voice. Your phone narrates in the language its game page is in. So choose the language you teach with the language button at the top of the page before you tap Create game. The code's link and QR code then open the game in that language on every phone.
• Every phone has its own language. A beginners' table can switch its phone to their own language with the same button, or with Language in the game menu, while the narrator speaks the one you teach.
• Pre-teach the narrator's words. The narrator script has every line the narrator says, in order. The role names in all seven languages are in the rules.
• Give each table a phrase card for the day: "I think … is a werewolf, because …", "That's not true: …", "Why did you …?", "I agree with …", "I vote for …".
• Make the debrief a writing task: each student writes the story of the game from their role's point of view, using the recap on the end screen.

Students' privacy: what the game keeps

These are the facts, from the game's code at the time of writing:

• No accounts and no email. Students join with the code or the QR code and type a name. On shared phones, a classmate can add them by name, so they don't need a phone at all.
• Only a name. Use first names or nicknames, up to 24 characters. The game keeps the names, the seats and what happens in the game. The server deletes the game once nobody has used it for a day and no phone still has it open.
• No cookies, no ads, no trackers. The game sets no cookies, and its page loads nothing from other sites. Each phone keeps a few things in its own storage. It keeps the keys to its seats in its last 12 games, so a reload puts the student back in their seat. It keeps the name last typed on it, which the next join form shows: on a shared class tablet, the next student types over it. And it keeps the language chosen on it. Your phone also keeps your last setup. (A phone that opened a partner's link, such as a hostel's, keeps that partner's key for 30 days. On a site that sells hosting, a host's phone keeps a key to its account.)
• No names in the logs. The server's logs record no player names and no IP addresses. As with any website, the network that carries the traffic to the server (Cloudflare) sees each phone's IP address.
• Nothing to install. The game runs in the browser of a phone or tablet.

The camp-night version

• One circle, one voice. Around a fire or in a dark cabin, use Voice narrator: everyone closes their eyes, and your phone calls the roles one by one in a recorded voice. Turn the volume up. Those called open their eyes and tap their choice on the nearest phone. With only your phone, it goes from hand to hand while everyone checks their role. At night, put it where those called can reach it, and they tap their choice on it.
• Older campers who know the game can try the Classic setup, from 8 players: the seer, the witch, the hunter, Cupid and an elected sheriff, and the village idiot from 11 players. It has no doctor until 17 players.
• No signal? Wolf Village needs an internet connection. Without one, deal with playing cards or paper slips, as in how to play Werewolf without cards, and a leader narrates from the narrator script.
• Tell the deaths as stories. A leader who narrates can use the 20 short death stories for the mornings.
• Younger campers need gentler words and shorter rounds: see Werewolf for kids and families.

Run it with one phone per table: no student accounts, nothing to install

Run it with one phone per table: no student accounts, nothing to install