A Werewolf/Mafia game. In this case, Ultimate Werewolf which adds a TON of specialist cards as opposed to just the simpler amount of player types in norma Mafia and Werewolf games.
And it sort of needed it as we had nearly 30 players in one game. At 2-3 AM.
Some background: See the convention center charges entirely too much to allow for 24 hours in the center. The first year the convention was at the center (my first year going and the first year the convention center itself was opened) it was 24 hours but there were lots of charges that ended that.
(And nearly ended the convention itself.)
However last year at least they added plenty of things in the Marriott hotel ballrooms and meeting rooms which helped. Like the ever popular rave and such which keeps some convention fun going past midnight though to a smaller scale.
So this year the overnight gaming room which was somewhat sparsely populated last year (and a fine place to hear lots of con staffer gossip) actually had some big action this year with a fellow running Werewolf there. I got into the last game of the night which was pretty huge.
If you do not know how the Werewolf type games work here is the basics:
You are in some small rustic community. Something evil killed an NPC. Each night the evil chooses to kill someone new while various mystics try to figure out who is the evil. During the day everyone votes on who they think is one of the evil beings and then that person is either killed or survives another night.
The night time stuff is done by everyone putting their heads down and eyes closed with the Game Master telling Player Role X to open their peepers and do whatever it is they can do.
See at the game start, everyone is dealt a role card face down. Hiding this information is crucial, especially in larger games where there are multiple evil beings.
There are cards like the Seer which can choose to look at a card to see what they are and the like.
Ultimate Werewolf adds in tons of new roles such as the Tanner who hates his job so much he WANTS to die, the Frankenstein which gets the abilities of any role he can kill, and the Pacifist who isn't allowed to vote to kill anyone.
(Here is the starting game picture with as many possible people as I could in the game in the shot. It was such a massive game a few folks still got cut out. You can see my face down card in the lower right corner.)
I had the good fortune to draw the Tanner, meaning my victory condition was to get myself killed. I did so by seconding the nomination to have a player killed then voting for them to live, abstaining from votes, and not doing a very good job defending myself the first time I came up for extermination.
(Here is from later on, a round or two after I was killed, officially winning the game, me doing Devil Horn hand gestures in memory of Dio. You can see not many people are left in this corner. There were so many of us the GM had some trouble keeping everyone quiet, especially some of the numbskulls who were dead yet making commentary on everything that could bork up the game. The person most of you are probably looking at in this photo tried to help keep folks on task, yelling "SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTHS". I found this incredibly hot. I'm just sayin'!)
Thanks to my mad skills at being a straight man and keeping my poker face (no relation to Lady Gaga thankfully!) I was the main winner but they kept playing to see if the Werewolves or the other various classes got their objective.
It was neat how we all got some light roleplaying at introducing ourselves. We had 2 people saying they were our moms, 2 merchants (I called them Wal Mart and Target), I claimed to be the town Druid, and lots of various funny bits. If there had been a second game I probably would have said I was Gordon Ramsay, and tell people to get out of my kitchen, their food was RAAAWW, and calling them all DONKEYS.
(Here you can see the surviving werewolf who won the game if we ignore my awesome victory choosing his victim for the night. The people with their heads down are players not killed off yet. In a show of good taste, both of the Naruto fans were early victims and are thus heads up watching the proceedings which is sometimes more fun than still being in the game as you get to chuckle at all the silly mayhem and stupid antics you were once a part of, but now know the real score.)
I have to say if you ever have a chance to play in a big Werewolf/Mafia game it is a lot of fun, and a great party game that anyone can learn or pick up super fast. Ultimate Werewolf is probably the biggest version yet which adds in a lot more complexity, but also allows for massive games such as this you really cannot get outside of a convention environment.
Thanks to everyone in the game it was a good time!
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