Werewolf vs. The Resistance
These games are similar. Werewolf (aka Mafia or multiple other names) was the first and has been around for years now, but in recent times a bunch of spin-offs have appeared, such as Ultimate Werewolf or One Night Ultimate Werewolf. The Resistance is the pretender to the everyone shouting ‘he’s the bad guy’ throne. A little more strategic and a little more complex, its a very popular game down here with large groups, often played multiple times. Which one is for you though?
Werewolf:
How does it play?
In the basic game, there will be Villagers and werewolves. The number of werewolves (WW) will depend on the number of people playing (more people, more wolves). The WW know who each other are, but the villagers do not. Each night everyone shuts their eyes and the WW wake up and silently decide to kill a villager. That person is announced by the moderator (who isn’t playing) and the group has to lynch somebody they think is the WW. Chaos ensues as people start accusing each other arbitrarily of being a werewolf because they looked at them funny, or their chair squeaked when they were asleep, or they looked left when the dead villager was announced, or they just don’t like their shoes, pretty much anything can be construed as damning evidence of K9 blood. Once the lynching victim is decided they reveal if they were a WW or villager, and repeat until all the WW are dead or all the villagers are dead.
What’s awesome about it?
- You can play as many people as you like
- You can add tonnes of extra roles to add more ooomph to the games
- Its funny as hell and even if you are killed you get to see who the WW are and enjoy people making ridiculous accusations.
- Being a WW and lying your face off can be tremendous fun if your into that sort of thing.
- Its purely about convincing people of your opinion, nothing else.
What’s not so groovy?
- people can get sad when someone shouts at them for no reason
- you can die and be out of the game early, which isn’t great with a lot of people playing
- someone has to moderate the game and therefore not play.
- If you don’t like lying you’ll have a horrid time as a werewolf.
- There is next to no strategy, beyond manipulating people to do what you say (which can sometimes be reduced to SHOUTING LOUDLY THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN).
The Resistance
How does it play?
The Resistance is looking to bring down the Corporation. The Corporation have infiltrated the good guys and will try and sabotage their missions, but they don’t know who the bad guys are. Set up is the same as WW, you are secretly given a role (nice or naughty) and the Resistance need to try and figure out who the infiltrators are. There will be 5 missions and 3 must succeed in order for the Resistance to win. A leader will be chosen and they will select a certain number of people to do a mission. The rest of the table must then vote if they are happy with that group, if yes, then the group does the mission, if no , the player to the left becomes the new leader and chooses a new posse to go out a kick some booty. To pass a mission, each player secretly plays a pass or fail card, they are shuffled and revealed. If any fail card is played, then the mission is lost. Repeat until we have 3 fails/successes.
What’s awesome about it?
- There is a strong deduction element to it, as you use peoples votes as to whom should do missions, to try and narrow down the infiltrators.
- You can lie in a slightly more manipulating way. Because the information that comes up during the game gives you some evidence (or not) to back up your claims.
- No moderator required.
- Plays really quickly
What’s not so groovy?
- Some people can be a little over-analytical and bog the game down
- It ‘only’ goes to 10 players
- It’s really freaking hard to win as the Resistance.
Which is better?
Werewolf! That’s because I like arguing and indiscriminate accusations. Most would probably say The Resistance (or its sister Avalon), because it has more of a game to it, but they are WRONG, so there you have it. The latest version of WW, One Night Ultimate Werewolf is an excellent new version that literally lasts one night, but because of the number of roles involved, it provides some strategy as well as the blind shouting. You would have fun with either however, but WW with a great moderator really can’t be beaten.
