fontisian
Smash Champion
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2020
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Witchhunt
Oh no, bad guys are here. Let's kill people to get rid of them.
Preface: Witchhunt does not accommodate ******* modding. No false or misleading information should ever presented in-game to players, nor should any details about the rules or mechanics be withheld.
Overview
Witchhunt is a game in which two factions each seek to control their village by killing off the other: The Villagers and the Witches. There are fewer members of the Witch team, but their identities are secret. Whichever team successfully kills all of their opponents wins.
The game continuously marches through a daily cycle split into two phases: day and night. The length of each game’s cycle can vary; a real life game might take 10 minutes for each day and night, while a forum game might take a full week. Each phase has an announced deadline, at which point the game automatically transitions to the next phase.
During night, players may not make public discussion and any actions taken are private from other living players. Each night, the Coven of Witches selects a player to kill.
This kill is announced at the start of the next day. During day, living players may make open discussion and decide on a player of their own to eliminate. Any living player may vote for any other living player, and a true majority (more than half) is required to eliminate someone at the end of the day.
During this discussion, it may prove important to conceal information or lie. There is no restriction to what players can say or claim! Lies are normally weapons of the Witch team, but anyone can say anything in pursuit of their team’s victory.
Note that unlike some other games, there is no "flip" (announcement of the player's Type and Role) on death! Which team they were working for remains a mystery!
The game ends when one side has completely eliminated the other, or when this is inevitable. For example, Witches typically win when at least half the remaining players are Witches, because it is then impossible for Villagers to out-vote and eliminate them.
Player Assignments (Role and Type)
Each player is given two assignments: a unique role, and a non-unique type.
Roles provide every player with a special, unique ability of some sort. These abilities may be offensive, defensive, mechanical, informational or somewhere inbetween. Powers granted by your role only apply while you are alive.
Player type is separate from role, and determines what team the player is on.
For a 7 player game, there are two witches and extra witches are added at 9, 14 and 17 players (making three, four and five witch games, respectively).
At the start of the game the Witches get an additional, unassigned role and a single Witch may trade their own role with that of the extra role, allowing the Witches a limited amount of optimization of their role assignments.
Only the Witches know which role was given to them as an extra, so they can use that knowledge later in the game to their advantage in playing around village strategies. Also note that since the extra role is not assigned to a player, any ability that it may have is not usable by the Witches.
Village Player Types:
Village Commoner- This is the most common player type. Use your wits and your abilities to hunt down witches.
Village Clergy - The most powerful roles are considered “Holy” and are always aligned with the Village. Their roles are reserved for Holy Villagers and cannot be given to other player types.
(Holy Villagers have no other unique function besides getting a reserved role that is always Village aligned.)
Witch Player Types:
Witch - Witches start in the Coven. They know each other from the start of the game and vote as a group in the Witch Coven each night to kill a player. They may also communicate with each other at all times while alive.
Remember: Holy roles aside, any role can be any player type - Villager or Witch!
Important Information
The Roles
Some roles use the Reveal keyword. Roles that can Reveal publicly confirm themselves as their role in order to use their power. While any player may claim to be any role, you can only Reveal as a role if you are in-fact, that role.
After a player chooses to Reveal their role by publicly stating it in thread or privately telling the mod, the mod will make a post to process and confirm this action. If the player states their reveal in the thread, do not post afterwards, wait for the mod to confirm and resolve the Reveal.
Note that the Pagan, DOB and BOD must privately tell the mod their intentions, due to timing restrictions on their power.
Holy
Priest - Each night, you may check if a player is in the Witch Coven.
Information
Gravedigger - At the start of each odd numbered night, you learn the Role and Player Type of whoever died to the Elimination that day.
Undertaker - At the start of each even numbered night, you learn the Role and Player Type of whoever died to the Elimination that day.
Inquisitor - Each night, you may check if a player is holy or not.
Oracle - At the start of the game, you learn the identity of a random Village Commoner.
Defense
Survivalist - You start the game with an extra life.
Gambler - At the start of the game, pick even or odd. On those nights (but not days), you are protected from a kill and if you are a Witch you may also give another player protection.
Nurse - Once per game during any day (before time is up), you may Reveal your role and name any non-holy role. If that role is still alive, they gain an extra life.
Fanatic - When the Priest checks you, you are secretly notified and gain an extra life.
Offense
Judge - At the end of any day the players fail to select a player to elminate, you may privately decide yourself, ignoring any extra lives that player may have.
Hunter - The first time a player survives being killed, you may kill a player other than yourself the following night.
Dirty Old ******* - Once per game when your death is announced, you may Reveal your role and kill a player.
Loose Cannon - Once per game during any day (before time is up), you may Reveal your role. Sacrifice yourself to end the day and personally decide who to eliminate.
Red Musketeer - Musketeer. If you are the last Musketeer alive, you may Reveal your role and kill a player other than yourself.
Blue Musketeer - Musketeer. If you are the last Musketeer alive, you may Reveal your role and kill a player other than yourself.
Green Musketeer - Musketeer. If you are the last Musketeer alive, you may Reveal your role and kill a player other than yourself.
Keyword: Musketeer - The Muskeeters learn of each other at the start of the game (identities, but not exact roles). The last Musketeer alive may, once per game during any day, Reveal their role and kill a player.
The Witches
In addition to their roles, Witches have various factional abilities & bonuses to utilize during the game.
Night Kill: Each Night, the Coven may decide on a player to kill.
Last Stand: The last living member of the Witch team may kill up to two different players each night.
Illusion Kill: Once per game, Witches may make an Illusion Kill in addition to their usual kill(s). The target of an Illusion Kill always survives.
Spare Role: At the start of the game, the Witches get an additional, unassigned role and one of them may swap their own role with it.
Dead Players
Dead players may no longer communicate or vote with living players. They also may no longer utilize their role abilities. Dead players may communicate with each other freely, and watch the game unfold.
However, dead players are NOT removed from the game! Instead they continue to serve their side as an Angel or Demon.
Please note that while dead, players observe all actions made, or information gained by all players. For example, during a typical night, dead players might learn:
Start of Night
1. What the Gravedigger learned (eg: George the Gravedigger discovered that Alice the Oracle was a Witch)
2. What the Judge chose to do after a No Elim (eg: Jerry the Judge decided to Eliminate Wanda)
End of Night
1. The players in the coven & their kill target. (eg: The Witch Coven of Amy, Bob and Cindy voted to kill Dave)
2. The priest and his check target. (eg: Peter the Priest checked Fred, who is not in the Coven)
3. That the fanatic was checked and now has an extra life. (eg: Fred the Fanatic was checked by the Priest & gained an extra life)
If there are only dead players from a single group (Angels or Demons), then only that group will learn the info for that phase.
Angels and Demons
All dead Villagers are Angels and all dead Witches are Demons.
Angels may vote as a group to Protect any player from the Coven that night. The chosen player will be Protected against a single kill from the Coven (including one of the two Role Kills or the Last Stand), but not any other kill sources (such as the Hunter).
Each night, the Demons may pick two players to Haunt. This effects both the Priest and the Angels - if the Priest checks either Haunted player that night, he will receive the result for the other instead. Secondly, if the Angels protect either of the two Haunted players, they may never protect that player again.
Additionally, Angels may only protect a Haunted player if there are more Angels than Demons.
In other words, the Angels can stand in the Witches' way, but the Demons can stand in the Angels' way; all in layers of dares and bluffs!
Note that in order for this to flow smoothly, Demons must choose who they wish to Haunt by the halfway point each night, so that Angels may react accordingly.
Finally, once per game, the Angels may do a Double Protect, Protecting two players in priority order. If only one of these players would require Protection, they are Protected as normal, but if both players require it then only the player with the higher priority is Protected.
Questions
How does protection work exactly?
Protection blocks a single kill that occurs at night. Further, Protection stacks, so if you have two sources of protection (say you are the Gambler and Angels target you), it would take three kills in one night to kill you.
Also note that all kill survivals are made public, while only the first successful kill on each player is. So if someone were to survive two kills in a single night all would be revealed upon day start. However, if someone is successfully killed twice in the same night, only one kill on that player is reported upon day start.
When does the DOB / BOD go off?
All deaths are announced during day, so the DOB / BOD kill or +life always occur during day.
How are night actions resolved?
First, Demons choose their Haunt targets, then all non kill actions are resolved, then all kills are resolved. This means that nothing is interrupted or otherwise impeded by the target or recipient of an action being killed in the night.
Voting and Deadlines
Roles that Reveal during the day (such as Nurse or Assassin) extend the day by 24 hours, at the moderators discretion. This is to stop strategies such as 'use your power immediately before day end to prevent a reaction'.
During the day, living players may post in this thread and vote to eliminate a player. Please make your votes:
In bold on a separate line.
Colors are not required, but are appreciated.
Example:
Vote: Eidolonic
You may change votes at any time during the day.
At the end of the day's deadline, if a player has a majority of votes, that player is Eliminated. If no player has a majority, or a majority of players vote to Sleep, the decision defers to the Judge. The Judge's identity remains private, and the result is announced. If the Judge is dead or declines Judgment, no one is eliminated.
The number of votes that constitute a majority will be clearly posted at the start of each day.
Ending the day early requires an unanimous-minus-one vote count.
Votals will be posted with alarming irregularity.
Queued Actions
Roles that make immediate game decision at the start or end of a phase (such as Judge, DOB, BOD) need to have their desired action queued with the moderator - this is to allow the game to run smoothly, as (for example) needing to wait for the Judge to check-in and decide who to Eliminate after a No-Elim day could take many hours.
Additionally, players may have to be away from a computer when they would desire to make critical game decisions. Players can work with the moderator in advance to easily address these circumstances.
If you are AFK and want to queue an action related to your role, post it in your QT. (In <b>bold</b>, using HTML tags). You cannot queue votes except in extraordinary cases.
Behavior Rules
These rules help keep the game fun for everyone. Based on the seriousness of the violation, breaking these rules may result in a warning, a mod-kill via elimination, team forfeit, and/or a ban from participating in future game.
Hopefully it is not required, but if a mod-kill is needed, it will use the daily elimination for the town either on that day or the one that immediately follows.
1. No Duplicate Accounts
You cannot register for the game under multiple accounts. This is the most serious violation possible.
2. No Unauthorized Communications
Players may only communicate with other players using methods specifically allowed by the moderator, such as designated quicktopics or the game thread. Take care when talking to non-players about the game - if they share your private information with another player, that is a rules violation on you regardless of your intent.
3. No Encryption
Encryption is using a specific key to conceal information in text (which may or may not appear to conceal a hidden message), and communicating that key or part of it (including decryption instructions) to other players. (Private or public, before or after) Avoid explicitly declaring unique and unusual significance to non-content such as role ordering, post counts, or voting patterns. Anything that goes beyond irony and is a deliberate attempt to communicate is off-limits.
4. No Private Moderator Quoting
The moderator will try to make all communications in the public discussion, privately according to the publicly available script, or privately with yes or no responses. However, unforeseen circumstances do occur, so do not quote or otherwise acknowledge these private messages to other players, if they occur.
5. No Forum Abuse (No Edits)
This forum has certain features that are undesireable for a smooth game, that we require players to ignore. Do not edit your posts. Do not stalk the online forum status of players that have it enabled on their profile.
6. No Text Dumping
Do not post (in the public discussion or a QT) non-public material that is copied verbatim from another player, or written yourself more than 2 full game cycles ago. Additionally, do not copy timestamps.
7. Have Fun
This is not optional.
If you are interesting in more things Witchhunt related, check out http://chocolatepi.net/.
Oh no, bad guys are here. Let's kill people to get rid of them.
Preface: Witchhunt does not accommodate ******* modding. No false or misleading information should ever presented in-game to players, nor should any details about the rules or mechanics be withheld.
Overview
Witchhunt is a game in which two factions each seek to control their village by killing off the other: The Villagers and the Witches. There are fewer members of the Witch team, but their identities are secret. Whichever team successfully kills all of their opponents wins.
The game continuously marches through a daily cycle split into two phases: day and night. The length of each game’s cycle can vary; a real life game might take 10 minutes for each day and night, while a forum game might take a full week. Each phase has an announced deadline, at which point the game automatically transitions to the next phase.
During night, players may not make public discussion and any actions taken are private from other living players. Each night, the Coven of Witches selects a player to kill.
This kill is announced at the start of the next day. During day, living players may make open discussion and decide on a player of their own to eliminate. Any living player may vote for any other living player, and a true majority (more than half) is required to eliminate someone at the end of the day.
During this discussion, it may prove important to conceal information or lie. There is no restriction to what players can say or claim! Lies are normally weapons of the Witch team, but anyone can say anything in pursuit of their team’s victory.
Note that unlike some other games, there is no "flip" (announcement of the player's Type and Role) on death! Which team they were working for remains a mystery!
The game ends when one side has completely eliminated the other, or when this is inevitable. For example, Witches typically win when at least half the remaining players are Witches, because it is then impossible for Villagers to out-vote and eliminate them.
Player Assignments (Role and Type)
Each player is given two assignments: a unique role, and a non-unique type.
Roles provide every player with a special, unique ability of some sort. These abilities may be offensive, defensive, mechanical, informational or somewhere inbetween. Powers granted by your role only apply while you are alive.
Player type is separate from role, and determines what team the player is on.
For a 7 player game, there are two witches and extra witches are added at 9, 14 and 17 players (making three, four and five witch games, respectively).
At the start of the game the Witches get an additional, unassigned role and a single Witch may trade their own role with that of the extra role, allowing the Witches a limited amount of optimization of their role assignments.
Only the Witches know which role was given to them as an extra, so they can use that knowledge later in the game to their advantage in playing around village strategies. Also note that since the extra role is not assigned to a player, any ability that it may have is not usable by the Witches.
Village Player Types:
Village Commoner- This is the most common player type. Use your wits and your abilities to hunt down witches.
Village Clergy - The most powerful roles are considered “Holy” and are always aligned with the Village. Their roles are reserved for Holy Villagers and cannot be given to other player types.
(Holy Villagers have no other unique function besides getting a reserved role that is always Village aligned.)
Witch Player Types:
Witch - Witches start in the Coven. They know each other from the start of the game and vote as a group in the Witch Coven each night to kill a player. They may also communicate with each other at all times while alive.
Remember: Holy roles aside, any role can be any player type - Villager or Witch!
Important Information
The Roles
Some roles use the Reveal keyword. Roles that can Reveal publicly confirm themselves as their role in order to use their power. While any player may claim to be any role, you can only Reveal as a role if you are in-fact, that role.
After a player chooses to Reveal their role by publicly stating it in thread or privately telling the mod, the mod will make a post to process and confirm this action. If the player states their reveal in the thread, do not post afterwards, wait for the mod to confirm and resolve the Reveal.
Note that the Pagan, DOB and BOD must privately tell the mod their intentions, due to timing restrictions on their power.
Holy
Priest - Each night, you may check if a player is in the Witch Coven.
Information
Gravedigger - At the start of each odd numbered night, you learn the Role and Player Type of whoever died to the Elimination that day.
Undertaker - At the start of each even numbered night, you learn the Role and Player Type of whoever died to the Elimination that day.
Inquisitor - Each night, you may check if a player is holy or not.
Oracle - At the start of the game, you learn the identity of a random Village Commoner.
Defense
Survivalist - You start the game with an extra life.
Gambler - At the start of the game, pick even or odd. On those nights (but not days), you are protected from a kill and if you are a Witch you may also give another player protection.
Nurse - Once per game during any day (before time is up), you may Reveal your role and name any non-holy role. If that role is still alive, they gain an extra life.
Fanatic - When the Priest checks you, you are secretly notified and gain an extra life.
Offense
Judge - At the end of any day the players fail to select a player to elminate, you may privately decide yourself, ignoring any extra lives that player may have.
Hunter - The first time a player survives being killed, you may kill a player other than yourself the following night.
Dirty Old ******* - Once per game when your death is announced, you may Reveal your role and kill a player.
Loose Cannon - Once per game during any day (before time is up), you may Reveal your role. Sacrifice yourself to end the day and personally decide who to eliminate.
Red Musketeer - Musketeer. If you are the last Musketeer alive, you may Reveal your role and kill a player other than yourself.
Blue Musketeer - Musketeer. If you are the last Musketeer alive, you may Reveal your role and kill a player other than yourself.
Green Musketeer - Musketeer. If you are the last Musketeer alive, you may Reveal your role and kill a player other than yourself.
Keyword: Musketeer - The Muskeeters learn of each other at the start of the game (identities, but not exact roles). The last Musketeer alive may, once per game during any day, Reveal their role and kill a player.
The Witches
In addition to their roles, Witches have various factional abilities & bonuses to utilize during the game.
Night Kill: Each Night, the Coven may decide on a player to kill.
Last Stand: The last living member of the Witch team may kill up to two different players each night.
Illusion Kill: Once per game, Witches may make an Illusion Kill in addition to their usual kill(s). The target of an Illusion Kill always survives.
Spare Role: At the start of the game, the Witches get an additional, unassigned role and one of them may swap their own role with it.
Dead Players
Dead players may no longer communicate or vote with living players. They also may no longer utilize their role abilities. Dead players may communicate with each other freely, and watch the game unfold.
However, dead players are NOT removed from the game! Instead they continue to serve their side as an Angel or Demon.
Please note that while dead, players observe all actions made, or information gained by all players. For example, during a typical night, dead players might learn:
Start of Night
1. What the Gravedigger learned (eg: George the Gravedigger discovered that Alice the Oracle was a Witch)
2. What the Judge chose to do after a No Elim (eg: Jerry the Judge decided to Eliminate Wanda)
End of Night
1. The players in the coven & their kill target. (eg: The Witch Coven of Amy, Bob and Cindy voted to kill Dave)
2. The priest and his check target. (eg: Peter the Priest checked Fred, who is not in the Coven)
3. That the fanatic was checked and now has an extra life. (eg: Fred the Fanatic was checked by the Priest & gained an extra life)
If there are only dead players from a single group (Angels or Demons), then only that group will learn the info for that phase.
Angels and Demons
All dead Villagers are Angels and all dead Witches are Demons.
Angels may vote as a group to Protect any player from the Coven that night. The chosen player will be Protected against a single kill from the Coven (including one of the two Role Kills or the Last Stand), but not any other kill sources (such as the Hunter).
Each night, the Demons may pick two players to Haunt. This effects both the Priest and the Angels - if the Priest checks either Haunted player that night, he will receive the result for the other instead. Secondly, if the Angels protect either of the two Haunted players, they may never protect that player again.
Additionally, Angels may only protect a Haunted player if there are more Angels than Demons.
In other words, the Angels can stand in the Witches' way, but the Demons can stand in the Angels' way; all in layers of dares and bluffs!
Note that in order for this to flow smoothly, Demons must choose who they wish to Haunt by the halfway point each night, so that Angels may react accordingly.
Finally, once per game, the Angels may do a Double Protect, Protecting two players in priority order. If only one of these players would require Protection, they are Protected as normal, but if both players require it then only the player with the higher priority is Protected.
Questions
How does protection work exactly?
Protection blocks a single kill that occurs at night. Further, Protection stacks, so if you have two sources of protection (say you are the Gambler and Angels target you), it would take three kills in one night to kill you.
Also note that all kill survivals are made public, while only the first successful kill on each player is. So if someone were to survive two kills in a single night all would be revealed upon day start. However, if someone is successfully killed twice in the same night, only one kill on that player is reported upon day start.
When does the DOB / BOD go off?
All deaths are announced during day, so the DOB / BOD kill or +life always occur during day.
How are night actions resolved?
First, Demons choose their Haunt targets, then all non kill actions are resolved, then all kills are resolved. This means that nothing is interrupted or otherwise impeded by the target or recipient of an action being killed in the night.
Voting and Deadlines
Roles that Reveal during the day (such as Nurse or Assassin) extend the day by 24 hours, at the moderators discretion. This is to stop strategies such as 'use your power immediately before day end to prevent a reaction'.
During the day, living players may post in this thread and vote to eliminate a player. Please make your votes:
In bold on a separate line.
Colors are not required, but are appreciated.
Example:
Vote: Eidolonic
You may change votes at any time during the day.
At the end of the day's deadline, if a player has a majority of votes, that player is Eliminated. If no player has a majority, or a majority of players vote to Sleep, the decision defers to the Judge. The Judge's identity remains private, and the result is announced. If the Judge is dead or declines Judgment, no one is eliminated.
The number of votes that constitute a majority will be clearly posted at the start of each day.
Ending the day early requires an unanimous-minus-one vote count.
Votals will be posted with alarming irregularity.
Queued Actions
Roles that make immediate game decision at the start or end of a phase (such as Judge, DOB, BOD) need to have their desired action queued with the moderator - this is to allow the game to run smoothly, as (for example) needing to wait for the Judge to check-in and decide who to Eliminate after a No-Elim day could take many hours.
Additionally, players may have to be away from a computer when they would desire to make critical game decisions. Players can work with the moderator in advance to easily address these circumstances.
If you are AFK and want to queue an action related to your role, post it in your QT. (In <b>bold</b>, using HTML tags). You cannot queue votes except in extraordinary cases.
Behavior Rules
These rules help keep the game fun for everyone. Based on the seriousness of the violation, breaking these rules may result in a warning, a mod-kill via elimination, team forfeit, and/or a ban from participating in future game.
Hopefully it is not required, but if a mod-kill is needed, it will use the daily elimination for the town either on that day or the one that immediately follows.
1. No Duplicate Accounts
You cannot register for the game under multiple accounts. This is the most serious violation possible.
2. No Unauthorized Communications
Players may only communicate with other players using methods specifically allowed by the moderator, such as designated quicktopics or the game thread. Take care when talking to non-players about the game - if they share your private information with another player, that is a rules violation on you regardless of your intent.
3. No Encryption
Encryption is using a specific key to conceal information in text (which may or may not appear to conceal a hidden message), and communicating that key or part of it (including decryption instructions) to other players. (Private or public, before or after) Avoid explicitly declaring unique and unusual significance to non-content such as role ordering, post counts, or voting patterns. Anything that goes beyond irony and is a deliberate attempt to communicate is off-limits.
4. No Private Moderator Quoting
The moderator will try to make all communications in the public discussion, privately according to the publicly available script, or privately with yes or no responses. However, unforeseen circumstances do occur, so do not quote or otherwise acknowledge these private messages to other players, if they occur.
5. No Forum Abuse (No Edits)
This forum has certain features that are undesireable for a smooth game, that we require players to ignore. Do not edit your posts. Do not stalk the online forum status of players that have it enabled on their profile.
6. No Text Dumping
Do not post (in the public discussion or a QT) non-public material that is copied verbatim from another player, or written yourself more than 2 full game cycles ago. Additionally, do not copy timestamps.
7. Have Fun
This is not optional.
If you are interesting in more things Witchhunt related, check out http://chocolatepi.net/.
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