Play your own version of Traitors at home

So I was a little surprised to see this TV series get to the heights it has, and in addition a UK celebrity version has done extremely well this week. From the various pieces, I understand that most of the celebrity players just really really wanted to play it rather than their usual motivations for reality TV. It's not quite on the scale of Jason Mantzoukas choosing to seek out the show producers so he could participate in Taskmaster because he was such a fan of the show, but it's pretty close.

So what if I told you... you could play it at home? With just a pack of playing cards or UNO cards?

If you can't be bothered to read about the why, scroll straight to "Let me play the game damn it" to get straight to the recipe, as they say...

Some History

How it started for me

In 2004, I attended my first LAN Party. I didn't even bring a computer - I just knew people who were going and wanted in. After the first one, I found out about a mysterious group of people who assembled off the official events schedule at about 1-3am after a certain official event to play a (non computer) party game. This was typically after the pub quiz night on the understanding that people would be too boozy to fully enjoy high motor control games like Counterstrike.

This was elusive to find and people would hover in large enough spaces they thought the game would appear to be able to participate. Eventually, a large group of up to 30-40 would assemble. One person would run the game, and we'd all participate. Some of us "werewolves" (ie traitors) and some of us "villagers". This setup was compelling enough that the broad timing and format was copied by a competing set of LAN parties, in a much more open and less cliquish manner.

The wider phenomenon

In 2010, this wired article wrote about the phenomenon - about a game called Werewolves. Tech companies in Silicon Valley were using it in hiring! There were bots people coded to host the game for people in chat rooms/irc, one example here: https://javatwg.sourceforge.net/ (someone has a fork of this here: https://github.com/Trixarian/Werewolf )

By about 2013-2015-ish we were all a bit bored of the normal format and variants like "one night werewolf" were popular, and later in the decade more complex games inspired on the concept like Secret Hitler raised over a million dollars in kickstarter funding. This was also twinned with the new revival of board games, notably appealing to millennials, and board game cafes sprung up around the uk in this era.

However, the game itself goes back further than that. The two most famous variants, werewolves and the mafia game - the former was an adaptation of the Mafia Game (originally from someone from Moscow University) by someone called Andrew Plotkin, who amongst other things made one of the most played games from my childhood:

Going back further... this is the classic murder mystery format.

So overall, I don't feel like I'm breaking any IP or copyright by sharing this - especially as I'm not selling anything and this is based on materials you have at home. In addition, people have been riffing on this format, and a lot of the variants are very strong games in their own right.

Let me play the game damn it

Ok, ok. Fineeeeee

A: The Simple Version

What you will need:

• Min 4 people (5+ is more playable)
• 1 of those people willing to be the "moderator" and run the game
• A set of playing cards or UNO cards (or make your own)

For the playing card part, get people to separate out the suits. Then separate out the King, Queen, Jack, jester and set aside.

• ♦️ Traitors will be diamonds
• ❤️ Regular players will be hearts.

(both of these suits can be recognised by children who do not understand playing cards, but you can choose the suit you want for each).

For the UNO variant (or pick the colours):

• 🟦 Blue are traitors
• 🟨 Yellow are regular players

You then take out a number of cards corresponding to the players below. You want about 1/4 traitors for this all to make sense.

The moderator then shuffles and gives one to each player. They then make note of their card and place it ahead of them.

The moderator then sets the scene, and runs each round. They do not participate in voting or killing.

1. Moderator asks everyone to shut their eyes
2. Moderator then asks the traitors to open their eyes only
3. The traitors kill someone
   1. Moderator then asks the traitors who they want to kill
   2. Traitor/s then point silently at who they want to kill
4. Moderator asks everyone to shut their eyes again, and then open them
5. The moderator announces who was killed - this person is now eliminated from the game

• In a big group that set of people can go play a short game of something else together - but they shouldn't talk anymore

7. The group then decide who to eliminate in that round by voting who they think is the traitor. Talking encouraged!
8. The voted person is eliminated from the game, their card shown and the "shut eyes" part begins again.

The game ends when the traitors or the regular players win.

The traitors win when they reach the same as the number of regular players (eg 1 traitor 1 regular player, 2 left overall)

Regular players win when they eliminate all traitors from the game

B: Adding variants

Add special roles

The TV show had little games people played outside the voting. You could choose to simulate that, or you could add some special roles.

The special roles sometimes operate during shut eyes, or during the open eyes phase. Some of them can even win separately to the traitors or regular players!

The number of special roles compared to players overall is below.

You can use your King, Queen, Jack, Joker (or your "special" Uno cards) to indicate one of these special roles. Some options:

• Psychic 🔮 can see one person's card per "shut eyes" phase
  • The moderator asks them who they'd like to see the card of
  • They point, the moderator shows them the card
  • The moderator can optionally call out the role or not eg "you have found the card of a traitor" or do it silently
• Doctor 💉 can choose to protect someone during the killing time every time - they must choose this before the traitors choose who to kill
• Assassin 🎯 if removed from the game they must choose to take someone with them.
• Chemist 🧪 has one heal and one poison medicine - to be used during the shut eyes phase.
• Cupid 💘 links two lovers who die together.
  • The cupid in the first round chooses the lovers then is asked to shut their eyes
  • The moderator touches the two lovers to wake up and make themselves known to each other quietly
  • The moderator shows the lovers the content of each lover's card
  • Cupid then reverts to a regular player but when one lover is removed, either killed or voted out, the other lover must make themselves known and be removed as well.
  • This adds an alternate win scenario where the lovers outnumber all other players.
• Bodyguard 🛡️ – can sacrifice themselves to protect someone in the game from being killed - either at voting or during the night. This is a once use thing!
• Cult Leader 🎭 - they choose to add a person to the cult per shut eyes phase, they can win by having more cult members over the rest of the players

Those of you familiar with most of my ramble in the history section will notice that these are very similar to Seer, Healer, Witch, etc in the werewolf version.

Obviously, everyone can lie about who they are, including special roles, adding a new layer of fun and strategy to the game.

Doing something with the eliminated players

This is useful for big groups or when you're playing with children. It can be dull to be asked to sit and be quiet while everyone else gets to speak! So...

If someone is eliminated, they are given a pen and paper, or access to a pen and paper, or maybe their phone or tablet. They then can choose to write and share (or message) one clue with the moderator at any further point during the game. The moderator would then reveal the clue at the next shut eyes phase. Their game then becomes about judging the right point to have the most influence - although I have seen people just share things like "I hate Jane" as their clue!

(you can do this with whispering if you don't mind sharing who was contributing the clue - this can add to the fun).

This means eliminated players are still playing, and can still be on the winning team.

Some General Tips for a Fun Game

Hopefully you now have an alternative at family gatherings to just charades...

Some general good play tips:

• These games very much take on the personality of the group - it's up to the moderator to set the guardrails and ensure it remains fun.
  • My lot are nerds so a lot of the discussion was about whether previous performance in other games was allowed to be used as evidence towards someone in the current game - "meta gaming"
• All in all, the moderator's word is considered final.
• That said, in some groups I would rotate the moderator to ease potential complaints about favouritism.
• Theming is very much allowed if the group likes it! Under the sea, your favourite TV Show or film, anything the group likes.
• You're welcome to play "as a character" ie pretending to be specific celebrities or historical figures, Cluedo characters or play as yourselves.

All in all, have fun! This is a tried and tested formula.