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Speaker 1: Night falls, werewolves, open your eyes and say hello to

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Speaker 1: the pack. You're hungry, aren't you? In silent formation, you

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Speaker 1: prowl between the farm houses. You smell some warm human blood.

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Speaker 1: The pack gathers in the churchyard to confer which of

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Speaker 1: the sleeping villagers smells the most delicious to you tonight? Oh? Really? Him?

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Speaker 1: All right? Stagger back to your homes, wash the blood

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Speaker 1: from your muzzles, and go to sleep. Daybreaks, everyone wakes up.

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Speaker 1: There's a sound coming from the town square. The constable's

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Speaker 1: bell is ringing. Something terrible has happened. Welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey,

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Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And during that introduction

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Speaker 1: you were either going omg, omg, omg, or you were like,

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Speaker 1: what the heck is going on? That's right, uh, for

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Speaker 1: those of you who don't know what the heck is

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Speaker 1: going on, we were referring to the game of Werewolf,

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Speaker 1: sometimes known as Mafia. Right, I came to know this

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Speaker 1: game as Mafia. Did you did you do Mafia first?

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Speaker 1: Or Werewolf? Werewolf first? And that's one of the reasons.

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Speaker 1: I'm a werewolf purist on the game, and I've looked

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Speaker 1: down upon those who play it with a Mafia theme.

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Speaker 1: Now we will explain the rules to the game if

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Speaker 1: you don't know what they are in just a minute.

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Speaker 1: But so I came to know this game first as Mafia,

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Speaker 1: and I played it when I was in high school.

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Speaker 1: I played it with a bunch of friends of mine

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Speaker 1: down in their basement, and we would play for hours

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Speaker 1: at a time. It could just go on and on

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Speaker 1: and on, and we'd introduce all these ridiculous variations, because,

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Speaker 1: as you'll learn, once you know the basic rule of

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Speaker 1: this game, it can take on any kind of textural

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Speaker 1: overlay you want. It can be about werewolves, it can

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Speaker 1: be about Mafia, or as we did when I was

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Speaker 1: in high school, it can be about elves and orcs.

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Speaker 1: And so every time a character dies, I guess they

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Speaker 1: wouldn't die that the moderator would say, depart to Valan

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Speaker 1: or oh that's that's good. Yeah. So basically, it's a

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Speaker 1: social deception or a social deduction party game, depending on

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Speaker 1: how you look at it, in which an informed minority,

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Speaker 1: in this case, where wolves attempt to overcome an uninformed majority,

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Speaker 1: such as medieval villagers you know, or vice versa, depending

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Speaker 1: on which team you're you're playing on. Uh. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is a deceptively easy game to learn. I found

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Speaker 1: that just about anybody can get into it, even if

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Speaker 1: you're not a gaming person, because you'll frequently I'll frequently

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Speaker 1: find myself at a at a a gathering and not

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Speaker 1: everybody will be a board game geek. There'll be some

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Speaker 1: board game geeks there, but hard to bring everybody together

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Speaker 1: on what to play. This is one of those games

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Speaker 1: that brings people together. Well. Right, if you're at a

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Speaker 1: party and you say, hey, let's break out the D twenties,

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Speaker 1: it's time to play Dungeons and Dragons, a lot of

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Speaker 1: people are not not just going to be weirded out

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Speaker 1: by the geekiness of it, but they're also going to be, like,

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Speaker 1: all these rules, I gotta learn how to play. It's

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Speaker 1: really for some people they just don't want to be

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Speaker 1: bothered with all of the minutia of how to play

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Speaker 1: the game and what the hit points are and everything.

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Speaker 1: Were Wolf is like a version of D and D

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Speaker 1: that takes away almost every single rule and strips it

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Speaker 1: down to just pure role playing and basically the only

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Speaker 1: dynamics in the game are accusation and lying and killing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and you don't need to you don't need a board.

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Speaker 1: You don't need to buy a copy of the game,

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Speaker 1: though there are some nice print versions of the game available.

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Speaker 1: But basically, all you need or just some index cards

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Speaker 1: or scraps of paper and a willingness to either draw

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Speaker 1: a werewolf and some villagers on them or just throw

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Speaker 1: some ws and v's and hand out the scraps. Robert,

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Speaker 1: you have made me this morning an amazing collection of

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Speaker 1: Werewolf game player cards on I believe how stuff works

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Speaker 1: branded envelopes. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, because you can

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Speaker 1: really use anything and you can just throw them together

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Speaker 1: at the drop of a hat. So it works well.

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Speaker 1: If you're with people at a cabin or something, or

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Speaker 1: even in a hotel room, you can grab that that

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Speaker 1: Howard Johnson notepad and the Howard Johnson pen and pages

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Speaker 1: of the Gideon Bible. Yeah, if you want to go

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Speaker 1: sacrilegious on it. Um and you might have to tweak

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Speaker 1: the the fluff there a little bit for it. But

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Speaker 1: but but yeah, this is this game is just a

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Speaker 1: wonderful balance of to put it in those gaming terms

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Speaker 1: simplistic mechanics, but the deep mechanics once you start playing

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Speaker 1: with it, and and and then entertaining fluff. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: they will eventually prove scientifically and technologically relevant, which is

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Speaker 1: the interesting thing and what justifies this foray into the

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Speaker 1: land of the Werewolves today. But I think for those

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Speaker 1: people out there who have never played the game and

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Speaker 1: are silk on what what's going on, we should describe

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Speaker 1: the rules, right, And hey, I just wanted to let

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Speaker 1: you know we played a few rounds of were a

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Speaker 1: Wolf with our co workers here in the opposite how

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Speaker 1: Steph works, and so we may play a few clips

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Speaker 1: for you from those games. And I wanted to give

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Speaker 1: a shout out to our co workers Alex, Lauren tar

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Speaker 1: Ramsey and Sarah for being really great sports and for

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Speaker 1: killing us again and again. Yeah, they really got into it.

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Speaker 1: We had to, We had to remove a fair amount

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Speaker 1: of cursing, but it was worth it. So at the

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Speaker 1: beginning of the game, you gathered together a bunch of

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Speaker 1: players and every player is randomly assigned a card telling

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Speaker 1: them their role. So for most players, you're going to

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Speaker 1: be a villager for a select minority in a group

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Speaker 1: of say eight, your select minority might be like two,

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Speaker 1: and those players are going to be werewolves. Then the

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Speaker 1: game proceeds into two phases that repeat back and forth,

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Speaker 1: night and day, day and night. Now a game master

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Speaker 1: runs the game and informs everyone when to close their eyes,

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Speaker 1: when to open their eyes. So you would say something like,

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Speaker 1: al right, villagers, nightfalls and your sleepy medieval town. Everyone

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Speaker 1: closes their eyes except for the werewolves. Werewolves, open your

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Speaker 1: eyes and indicate who shall die tonight. So the werewolves

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Speaker 1: silently confer. They usually with some kind of eye contact

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Speaker 1: or pointing game, and they figure out who they want

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Speaker 1: to devour or I don't know, just disembowel and leave

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Speaker 1: in the middle of the town. Yeah. I mean, that's

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Speaker 1: the delightful thing about about being the game masters. You

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Speaker 1: get to throw in details about how they're torn apart.

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Speaker 1: All right, the sun comes up, but not for you,

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Speaker 1: horse trainer. He was eating right down to the boots

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Speaker 1: and I didn't even get a chance. It's a little

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Speaker 1: less pressure now that I'm dead trying to lead the body.

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Speaker 1: I need some supplies. Robert, what's your favorite terror parts story? Oh, generally,

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Speaker 1: I just have like a portion of the individuals left

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Speaker 1: behind because I like the idea that the werewolves are

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Speaker 1: becoming so confident that they don't even have to eat everything,

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Speaker 1: and they would just they're just as happy to spread

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Speaker 1: terror throughout the town as anything else. I'm still so

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Speaker 1: full from that policeman last night. All right, So night

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Speaker 1: eventually comes to an end. That phase ends how the

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Speaker 1: villagers wake up, they find out who has been eaten

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Speaker 1: or torn apart in the night, and then they have

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Speaker 1: to dish out their own medieval mob justice. Right, So

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Speaker 1: the dead villager who has been chosen by the werewolves

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Speaker 1: is removed from the game, and I would say, for

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Speaker 1: total purity, I think that villager should not only be

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Speaker 1: removed from play and can't make any comments, but should

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Speaker 1: be banished from the room where everyone is playing, or

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Speaker 1: at least into the corner there's got to be some steaks.

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Speaker 1: Well I but then you have somebody who gets eliminated

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Speaker 1: right away, and well what I usually say is, look,

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Speaker 1: you're a ghost now, and you can't talk. You can observe,

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Speaker 1: but you can't talk. And it's always amusing when the

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Speaker 1: biggest chatter box in the room is reduced to a ghost.

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Speaker 1: You're you're the grandpa and the cloud in the family circus.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, so, like like you said, day comes around

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Speaker 1: and the villagers have to essentially form a mob to

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Speaker 1: find the killer and take care of them. And now,

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Speaker 1: since these are werewolves, they're very powerful at night. You

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Speaker 1: can't stop them at night when the full moon is out.

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Speaker 1: But during the daytime, they're just regular humans and you

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Speaker 1: can take them to the gallows if you are pretty

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Speaker 1: convinced that they're guilty. But how convinced are you? That's right?

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Speaker 1: So it comes down to a lot of a lot

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Speaker 1: of blind accusations, a lot of you know, self interested accusations.

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Speaker 1: And the cool part two is that you have werewolves

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Speaker 1: in there trying to uphold their cover as a human,

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Speaker 1: and they're going to make a case to probably for

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Speaker 1: a non wolf because because they know who the other

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Speaker 1: werewolf or well werewolves are, ye, why would they accuse

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Speaker 1: one of their own. So if you're Alice the werewolf,

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Speaker 1: you don't want to accuse Jeff the werewolf. You want

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Speaker 1: to accuse Rodney the villager of being a werewolf, right,

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Speaker 1: or jump on someone else's suspicion, uh, and then start

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Speaker 1: encouraging that anything to cast the suspicion away from you,

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Speaker 1: and at the end of all of this, there'll be

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Speaker 1: some sort of a vote. The villagers will decide who's

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Speaker 1: going to be executed for the crime of lokanthropy and

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Speaker 1: then only then and I think rules may vary on this,

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Speaker 1: but the way we play it is that at this

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Speaker 1: point they can perform an autopsy and they find out

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Speaker 1: if that was indeed a werewolf. Okay, So in some

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Speaker 1: versions of the game, you don't find out. You don't

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Speaker 1: know whether you just executed an innocent villager or a

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Speaker 1: werewolf until the end of the game, when it's finally

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Speaker 1: revealed who was who. Ah. That sounds rewarding as well,

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Speaker 1: because on one hand, with the with the autopsy, it

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Speaker 1: gives the person a chance to see like, I told

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Speaker 1: you so, I told you I wasn't werewolf, right, But

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Speaker 1: on the other hand, I do you're a ghost and

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Speaker 1: you can't comment right? Well that I like to think

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Speaker 1: that's their last thing they get to shout before they

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Speaker 1: drift into the nether realm. Nice. Okay, So you've got

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Speaker 1: this day night cycle where somebody, some player dies and

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Speaker 1: gets removed from the game every day and every night,

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Speaker 1: and the cycle continues until the end of the game.

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Speaker 1: So what brings about the end of the game. Well,

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Speaker 1: you can tell which team wins if suddenly the werewolves

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Speaker 1: out number the humans, right, or in some versions, I

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Speaker 1: think if they equal the number of humans. Well, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you've got the same number of werewolves

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Speaker 1: and villagers. Yeah, and the villagers don't stay much of

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Speaker 1: a chance. Yeah, and then it's just werewolves slaughtering humans

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Speaker 1: in broad daylight. Welcome to Werewolf City. Yes. Now, of

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Speaker 1: course the regular villagers win once they eliminate all of

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Speaker 1: the werewolves in their midst and the moderator can announce

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Speaker 1: to them You've gotten the last one. Your village is

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Speaker 1: safe for now until the next game starts, which is

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Speaker 1: probably in about five minutes. Now, that's the basic game

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Speaker 1: of Werewolf form. Fia Mafia is exactly the same, except

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Speaker 1: instead of werewolves, their mafia members, the same rules, everything is.

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Speaker 1: It's just different texture, yeah, different fluff, which I have

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Speaker 1: to reiterate that I think werewolves are tremendously more fun

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Speaker 1: because I don't really like I don't like playing my

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Speaker 1: my cool parlor game with murderous criminals. I like the

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Speaker 1: idea of the fantastic Werewolf's gotta be monsters. Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: so there are a million different ways you can throw

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Speaker 1: some spice into this game, right, People play this game

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Speaker 1: with all different kinds of crazy invented third party characters,

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Speaker 1: so it's not necessarily just villagers and werewolves. What if

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Speaker 1: you add in Robert, give me, give me another player class?

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Speaker 1: The one I love the most is the sear. Okay,

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Speaker 1: how does that work? The seer has a separate phase

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Speaker 1: in the night. So there's the phase where the werewolves

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Speaker 1: get to open their eyes and pick out who's gonna

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Speaker 1: die and then close their eyes. But then you have

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Speaker 1: another phase where the sea or opens their eyes and

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Speaker 1: they get to point to one person and the game

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Speaker 1: master will give them a thumbs up or at comes

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Speaker 1: down about there the presence of lecanthropy, So this gives

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Speaker 1: one villager the chance to have secret knowledge. Generally, it's

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Speaker 1: you know, the odds are gonna play out that it's

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Speaker 1: probably gonna be about who is not a werewolf as

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Speaker 1: opposed to who is a werewolf? But then they have

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Speaker 1: to be careful about tipping their hand and the argument

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Speaker 1: so that that follow exactly. So you say, uh, day

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Speaker 1: comes around and you say, well, I know Jeff is

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Speaker 1: a werewolf because I'm the Seer and I got the

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Speaker 1: thumbs up on him last night. Guess who's going to

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Speaker 1: die tonight? Obviously the person who's revealed themselves as the

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Speaker 1: Seer right now. There are other variations on the privileged

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Speaker 1: Knowledge character. There is a for instance, the Innocent Child,

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Speaker 1: and this is when I tend to not use. But

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Speaker 1: this one involves one player who gets to peak during

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Speaker 1: the night, so it's risky. So instead of having a

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Speaker 1: separate phase in the night where you can ask the moderator,

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Speaker 1: you have the option if you choose to open your

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Speaker 1: eyes while the werewolves are conferring, right, and this gives,

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Speaker 1: of course the werewolves a chance to actually spot you spying.

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Speaker 1: So it adds this extra extra level to the play.

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Speaker 1: I guess now. One way I know I have played

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Speaker 1: is with a character that would be a doctor, or

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe even better would be the apothecary. Well, this

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Speaker 1: is kind of like the Seer, but instead of asking

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Speaker 1: the moderator every night, the doctor can choose one person

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Speaker 1: to make immune. So say the apothecary, can they wake

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Speaker 1: up at a different phase in the night and they

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Speaker 1: give a potion to someone and if that is the

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Speaker 1: same person that the werewolves have selected. That person, that

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Speaker 1: person gets saved by the potion. The werewolf attack does

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Speaker 1: not succeed. Oh that's nice. There's one that we sometimes

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Speaker 1: use called the Hunter, where they get to take somebody

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Speaker 1: down with them if they die, which adds some sort

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Speaker 1: of like shootout mentality to the proceedings. Another one, I

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Speaker 1: don't man if that happens early in the game, the

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Speaker 1: Hunter probably is going to be randomly getting another villager, right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean that's what of the problems with a real

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Speaker 1: you know, itchy crossbow finger, you know. So tell me

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Speaker 1: about the Cupid, Robert, Oh, the Cupid is one of

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Speaker 1: my favorites. So this is just a villager basically, but

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Speaker 1: they get a phase at the very beginning of the

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Speaker 1: game where they get to secretly pick two players to

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Speaker 1: be star crossed lovers. So if one dies and they

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Speaker 1: could be they could be a human villager or they

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Speaker 1: could be a werewolf, you know, in masquerading as a villager.

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Speaker 1: But if the other lover dies, their character throws themselves

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Speaker 1: off a bridge. Love knows no boundaries monster them. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's so this one also adds that sort of

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Speaker 1: crossfire dynamics of whoa, this happened and then something else

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Speaker 1: happened as well. Now you can imagine that the strategy

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Speaker 1: in this game. This game is odd because at one level,

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Speaker 1: it seems like when you start the game, you're just

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Speaker 1: going to be making these totally random accusations. I mean,

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Speaker 1: what do you have to go on? Maybe you thought

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Speaker 1: you heard somebody next to you opening their eyes. I

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Speaker 1: mean it's hard. It's hard to have anything to go

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Speaker 1: on at the beginning of the game other than just

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Speaker 1: mere suspicion. But strategy I do think tends to come

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Speaker 1: in more as the game goes on. Yeah, that first

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Speaker 1: phase of play, I think they're in my experience, there

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Speaker 1: are basically two elements that are gonna work. Unless somebody

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Speaker 1: really does creak their chair and make a very audible

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Speaker 1: sign that that clues and everyone else. You're gonna have

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Speaker 1: existing uh social dynamics coming into play. So like two

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Speaker 1: friends who kind of pick each other at each other

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Speaker 1: a lot um, they're likely to accuse each other of

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Speaker 1: being awarewolf just because other factors. Uh. If an individual

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Speaker 1: in the group has a large beard, I found, they're

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Speaker 1: likely to to draw the uh you know, the fun

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Speaker 1: suspicion of everyone else because there's nothing else to go on.

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Speaker 1: What if they've just got dark dried blood on their lips,

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Speaker 1: that'll do it too. Now another thing that comes into

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Speaker 1: play so is this when when I play it. When

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Speaker 1: I am the gamemaster for a game Awarewolf, I generally

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Speaker 1: ask everyone to choose a role in the village. This

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Speaker 1: is not a game mechanics role, but just a fluff roll.

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Speaker 1: So you're just a villager, but you get to I'm

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Speaker 1: the dairy farm Yeah, you get to be the dairy farmer.

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Speaker 1: Or you're the you know, you're the town fool, you're

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Speaker 1: the you work at the winery, you're a monk, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: It just gives it an extra level of role playing fun.

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Speaker 1: What do you what do you all do here? What

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Speaker 1: are you up doing? The demokratic Republic of I'm a tailor,

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Speaker 1: but I'm real bad at it. I'm the I'm the

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Speaker 1: leacher in the town. I hear that help you prevent

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00:16:36,160 --> 00:16:39,720
Speaker 1: pantherpy Yeah? Okay, useful? Useful. A lot of industries sprung

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Speaker 1: up around this whole werewolf thing. Try since I build coffins, coffins, lechers,

308
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Speaker 1: terrible tailors, what do you do on the town want

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Speaker 1: of you werewolves? Yeah, I'm the werewolf groupiece. I don't

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Speaker 1: really have a job. I just like go from North

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Speaker 1: Catatonia to South Catatonia and I'm just like, look at

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Speaker 1: the werewolf remains. So you would not be wanting to

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Speaker 1: kill a werewolf or put one on trial or is

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Speaker 1: that your thing? Yes? I leave it there. The werewolf

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Speaker 1: traumas has really had an effect in the populary. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I see that, all right. I'm a warlock. Warlock, Okay,

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Speaker 1: do you need any fancy ropes? I can make them uncomfortable.

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Speaker 1: I need you to come by my place at three

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Speaker 1: to do another werewolf protection spelled werewolves. Midwife an the

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Speaker 1: only person do anything. Nobody in this village makes food. No, no,

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Speaker 1: So we've got a warlock, we've got a midwife, we've

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Speaker 1: got a groupie, we've got a terrible tailor, we've got

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Speaker 1: a coffin maker, and we've got a bleacher. Yeah. And

324
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Speaker 1: there's just a voice that tells you things that happen,

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Speaker 1: Like right now is the sun sets mazy sky and

326
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Speaker 1: the babbling group comes up. If there are two were

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Speaker 1: most among us, let me see your eyes. But this

328
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Speaker 1: can also give people ammunition for making blind accusations in

329
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Speaker 1: the opening phase. Okay, so sometimes the accusations wouldn't be

330
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Speaker 1: truly strategic just in terms of winning the game, but

331
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Speaker 1: they might be playing along with some you know, not

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Speaker 1: actually strategic elements that are just part of the fluff.

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Speaker 1: So it's this weird mix of rationality and irrationality in

334
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Speaker 1: the game play. Yeah, yeah, I would say so. But

335
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Speaker 1: in terms of player classes, classes that have mechanics attached

336
00:18:46,720 --> 00:18:49,399
Speaker 1: to them, the list just goes on and on. There

337
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Speaker 1: there are tons of fun classes to play with. Some

338
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Speaker 1: of them, you know, they kind of break the game, uh,

339
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Speaker 1: and you decide, well, we're not going to have that

340
00:18:57,160 --> 00:19:02,600
Speaker 1: one again. Other ones introduce new mccans, new dynamics that

341
00:19:02,640 --> 00:19:05,199
Speaker 1: they can just keep you playing Werewolf into the wee hours.

342
00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:07,239
Speaker 1: Here's the one I would go with. Tell me if

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Speaker 1: you think this would break the game. The RoboCop. So

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Speaker 1: the village has one RoboCop that each night can administer

345
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Speaker 1: harsh justice just to a random individual. Or how does it?

346
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Speaker 1: How does the RoboCop decide? I guess the robocops following

347
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Speaker 1: something you a list of orders. Well, it's by the

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Speaker 1: rubric of serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and

349
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Speaker 1: uphold the law, and then maybe a secret fourth category

350
00:19:31,119 --> 00:19:34,479
Speaker 1: of course we don't know. Well, hey, hey Robert, Okay,

351
00:19:34,520 --> 00:19:38,159
Speaker 1: so here's the thing. We've just described. This weird game

352
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Speaker 1: about killing your friends and then accusing your friends and

353
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Speaker 1: then killing more of your friends. Why is this so popular?

354
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Speaker 1: I I've had the experience that whenever you introduced this

355
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Speaker 1: to a group of people, especially if they haven't played before,

356
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Speaker 1: they get ravenous for the game and they're they're like, yeah, yeah,

357
00:19:56,000 --> 00:19:58,480
Speaker 1: we gotta play more. Let's let's keep going. Yeah, it's

358
00:19:58,520 --> 00:20:01,480
Speaker 1: so very addictive, and and I think the the appeal

359
00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:04,280
Speaker 1: of the game does come down to a few key reasons.

360
00:20:04,680 --> 00:20:07,440
Speaker 1: So some of these we've already touched on. But first

361
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Speaker 1: of all, there's a very low learning curve. Virtually anyone

362
00:20:10,520 --> 00:20:13,359
Speaker 1: can play. Don't have dn D rules, it's just you

363
00:20:13,400 --> 00:20:17,080
Speaker 1: can learn it in five minutes. And also, again, while

364
00:20:17,119 --> 00:20:19,280
Speaker 1: you can brought by some pretty cool print versions of

365
00:20:19,280 --> 00:20:22,280
Speaker 1: the game, everything you need is easily printed out or

366
00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:25,119
Speaker 1: just scribbled on index cars and you're good to go again.

367
00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:29,679
Speaker 1: Howard Johnson, Stationary and pen and you're playing Werewolf. And

368
00:20:29,680 --> 00:20:31,760
Speaker 1: then there's this if anyone out there has ever played

369
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Speaker 1: rock band or guitar hero at a social gathering. You

370
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Speaker 1: know how that can just sort of treat was popular

371
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Speaker 1: for a while. It was, and I always noticed how

372
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Speaker 1: it just turned the room into this is this zombified

373
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Speaker 1: state where people aren't really interacting socially with each other.

374
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Speaker 1: They're only interacting with each other in this this soulless

375
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Speaker 1: presentation on the screen. It's like what was imagined by

376
00:20:54,160 --> 00:20:58,359
Speaker 1: the bad guys in the movie video Drone exactly. Yeah, Werewolf.

377
00:20:58,400 --> 00:21:00,919
Speaker 1: On the other hand, it actually in Courage is social

378
00:21:00,960 --> 00:21:04,359
Speaker 1: interaction among the players as well as varying degrees of

379
00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:07,560
Speaker 1: role playing depending on you know, how comfortable the group

380
00:21:07,640 --> 00:21:09,960
Speaker 1: is with that. But that will that will come out

381
00:21:10,080 --> 00:21:13,480
Speaker 1: organically as you play. And then, like a lot of

382
00:21:13,520 --> 00:21:17,240
Speaker 1: great games, it's deceptively complex, easy to learn, but full

383
00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:20,480
Speaker 1: of new twists and challenges as the players adapt and

384
00:21:20,560 --> 00:21:23,280
Speaker 1: as new optional rules are introduced, So you learn to

385
00:21:23,320 --> 00:21:26,000
Speaker 1: lie better and you get better at spotting the lies

386
00:21:26,119 --> 00:21:28,280
Speaker 1: of others, and if as you're doing a lot of

387
00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:30,360
Speaker 1: back and forth role playing as well, it just gives

388
00:21:30,359 --> 00:21:33,199
Speaker 1: you more and more ammunition. Now I know. There was

389
00:21:33,280 --> 00:21:36,240
Speaker 1: one interesting article about this game that was published in

390
00:21:36,280 --> 00:21:39,080
Speaker 1: two thousand ten and Wired that we both read, and

391
00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:40,919
Speaker 1: one of the things that it points out is that

392
00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:45,000
Speaker 1: this game is tremendously popular among people who work in

393
00:21:45,040 --> 00:21:48,199
Speaker 1: the tech business. That's a kind of odd thing to note, Like,

394
00:21:48,400 --> 00:21:50,600
Speaker 1: why do you think that is? Yeah, this was an

395
00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:54,240
Speaker 1: interesting article. They talked to Frank Lance, director of the

396
00:21:54,240 --> 00:21:58,280
Speaker 1: New York University Game Center, and he pointed out that

397
00:21:58,320 --> 00:22:02,800
Speaker 1: the game sanctions a lot of a titilating social activity.

398
00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:08,639
Speaker 1: So we're you know, we're talking stuff like flirtation, confrontation, betrayal,

399
00:22:09,160 --> 00:22:12,280
Speaker 1: meaning that it's not only great for extroverts because obviously

400
00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:15,440
Speaker 1: a bunch of extroverted theater majors are going to jump

401
00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:17,040
Speaker 1: in and have a lot of fun with this, but

402
00:22:17,200 --> 00:22:21,880
Speaker 1: introverts as well. Uh, it's instantly have license to engage

403
00:22:21,880 --> 00:22:24,600
Speaker 1: in all of this fun social interactions. Yeah, stuff that

404
00:22:24,640 --> 00:22:27,440
Speaker 1: you might normally be very intimidated to do in real

405
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:30,440
Speaker 1: life is sanctioned within the game. So there's a lot

406
00:22:30,440 --> 00:22:34,120
Speaker 1: of direct eye contact and accusing people and being yeah,

407
00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:37,800
Speaker 1: like you said, just being very confrontational. It's appealing to

408
00:22:37,920 --> 00:22:40,639
Speaker 1: do that in a controlled setting for people who don't

409
00:22:40,760 --> 00:22:43,280
Speaker 1: feel much permission to do that in the rest of

410
00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:46,879
Speaker 1: their lives, right. So so Frankie pointed out that this

411
00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:50,480
Speaker 1: obviously ended up appealing to more introverted members of the

412
00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:54,040
Speaker 1: tech industry. However, there's a c net article from the

413
00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:56,920
Speaker 1: two thousand nine that pointed out that that the game

414
00:22:56,960 --> 00:22:59,320
Speaker 1: was also a hit with more of the corporate types

415
00:22:59,359 --> 00:23:03,080
Speaker 1: as well, because sure, you're you're not pitching an idea

416
00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:05,399
Speaker 1: to a room full of investors, but you are a

417
00:23:05,440 --> 00:23:09,160
Speaker 1: secret werewolf trying to shift blame onto an innocent human.

418
00:23:09,320 --> 00:23:12,000
Speaker 1: And that's basic CEO of material, right, That's like what

419
00:23:12,040 --> 00:23:14,800
Speaker 1: they teach in business school. Or you're a seer or

420
00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:17,440
Speaker 1: a child with secret inside or info when you're trying

421
00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:21,760
Speaker 1: to make a purely logical case without revealing your privileged status,

422
00:23:21,840 --> 00:23:24,880
Speaker 1: so the level of social interaction can be seen. It's

423
00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:29,480
Speaker 1: practice for actual villainy, or or just this fun exercise

424
00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:32,480
Speaker 1: that lets you, uh, you know, move social muscles that

425
00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:35,080
Speaker 1: don't get a lot of exercise otherwise. I can't wait

426
00:23:35,119 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 1: to get all the CEO hate mail and it's gonna

427
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:40,239
Speaker 1: be great and like Mark Zuckerberg's right, and then you

428
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:45,320
Speaker 1: guys are totally biased ps not a werewolf. Okay, So

429
00:23:45,359 --> 00:23:48,960
Speaker 1: I've got a theory about why the game is so appealing,

430
00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:54,720
Speaker 1: And I think it's that it mirrors and simultaneously simplifies

431
00:23:55,320 --> 00:24:00,280
Speaker 1: so many high stakes, real life decision dilemmas because cause

432
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:02,679
Speaker 1: the dynamics sort of like you just mentioned with with

433
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:04,919
Speaker 1: the idea of this business. You know, you've got some

434
00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:08,760
Speaker 1: bisbro who is a secret werewolf and trying to pull

435
00:24:08,840 --> 00:24:11,199
Speaker 1: one over on the people who are being disadvantaged by

436
00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:16,520
Speaker 1: what he's doing. The dynamic of the informed minority versus

437
00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:20,600
Speaker 1: the uninformed majority is so common in the real world. Basically,

438
00:24:21,080 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 1: this is a description of what is meant by the

439
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:26,600
Speaker 1: word conspiracy. Oh yeah, it's a werewolf conspiracy. Now, the

440
00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 1: concept of a conspiracy, I think gets a bad rap

441
00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:32,240
Speaker 1: because it gets associated with the more wild versions like

442
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:37,480
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories tends to mean people who think interdimensional Sasquatches

443
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:41,240
Speaker 1: did nine eleven. But but there's no doubt that under

444
00:24:41,280 --> 00:24:45,320
Speaker 1: the broad definition, conspiracies exist all around us. Like any gang,

445
00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 1: any criminal gang is a conspiracy. Every network of corrupt

446
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:53,600
Speaker 1: politicians and people who buy favors from them, that's a conspiracy.

447
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:56,639
Speaker 1: It's an informed minority trying to get advantage over an

448
00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:01,199
Speaker 1: uninformed majority. Unethical company is of course as we mentioned

449
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:04,320
Speaker 1: could be described as conspiracies, and in every case there's

450
00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:08,280
Speaker 1: this small group working against the interests of the larger group,

451
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:12,320
Speaker 1: trying to keep their behavior secret and avoid accountability. Meanwhile,

452
00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:14,480
Speaker 1: the larger group is trying to root out all the

453
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:17,360
Speaker 1: people who are working in secret against them. And it's

454
00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:20,719
Speaker 1: entirely possible in all these real world scenarios that this

455
00:25:20,760 --> 00:25:24,399
Speaker 1: will lead to innocent people getting blamed and unfairly punished.

456
00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:27,520
Speaker 1: And so Where Wolf is cool because it reduces these

457
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:31,840
Speaker 1: most vexing problems in human civilization to this simple party game.

458
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:35,159
Speaker 1: This really distilled dynamic and one of the one of

459
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:37,399
Speaker 1: the cool and appealing things about Where Wolf is that

460
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 1: at the end of the game, you always get to

461
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:43,840
Speaker 1: find out what actually happened, right, even if you lose,

462
00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 1: there's resolution to the mystery. You know, in our constant

463
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: prosecution of the various mundane conspiracies in real life, time

464
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:54,720
Speaker 1: after time we find that we can't be certain what

465
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:56,919
Speaker 1: really happened. You know, the bad guy gets away with

466
00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:58,879
Speaker 1: it and you never find out what they did or

467
00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 1: who they were, or you prosecute somebody and they claim

468
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:04,120
Speaker 1: innocence all the way to the gallows and you can

469
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 1: never really be sure you did the right thing. The

470
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 1: appeal of Werewolf, I think is you get to play

471
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:13,600
Speaker 1: this dangerous game that we're all constantly playing in real

472
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:16,960
Speaker 1: life in simulation, and you get to find out for

473
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:20,600
Speaker 1: sure how well you did at it. Alright, listeners, on

474
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:22,879
Speaker 1: that note, I'm gonna ask everyone to close their eyes

475
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:27,119
Speaker 1: as the commercial break session of play commences, and then

476
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:29,119
Speaker 1: when we come back, you may open your eyes and

477
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:39,919
Speaker 1: we will discuss the history of Mafia and Werewolf. The

478
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:52,360
Speaker 1: Warlock goes by the coffin shop three pm. Un He's

479
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:55,160
Speaker 1: got his uncomfortable robin that the terrible tailor has tailored

480
00:26:55,280 --> 00:27:01,160
Speaker 1: for him terribly. The coffin acres nowhere to be seen,

481
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:04,480
Speaker 1: so while he's waiting, the Warlock is taking a tour

482
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 1: of the facilities. Opens a little baby coffin with spider lamps,

483
00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 1: opens a medium sized coffin, empty satinliner. Opens the large

484
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:21,719
Speaker 1: sized coffin, and the coffin maker is within everything except

485
00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:32,960
Speaker 1: for his face. The Apothecary, I shouldn't have. I don't

486
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:35,600
Speaker 1: have any direct dealings with her now. The apothecary has

487
00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:38,760
Speaker 1: wanted to be a werewolf for a long long time,

488
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:50,399
Speaker 1: so maybe we should just kill her. Alright, open your eyes.

489
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 1: The sun has risen. Now we've established that the clearly

490
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:56,000
Speaker 1: superior version of this game is the one with the

491
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: werewolf fluff instead of the Mafia fluff. But we've got

492
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:02,639
Speaker 1: it it. It was Mafia before it was Werewolf. It

493
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 1: was definitely Mafia before it was where Wolf. Invented by

494
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 1: a guy named Dimitri david Off. And I've seen nineteen

495
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:11,879
Speaker 1: eighty six in nineteen eighties seven sided I think, I

496
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 1: guess it was just around that period of eighty six

497
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:17,439
Speaker 1: eighty seven in Russia, right, Yeah, Yeah, he was a

498
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:19,679
Speaker 1: teacher in Russia, and I think this adds to that,

499
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:24,160
Speaker 1: maybe the appeal at the mafia uh motif, I don't know. Yeah,

500
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:28,840
Speaker 1: And he invented it as a psychological exercise for his students. Yeah,

501
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:30,960
Speaker 1: So he was a psychology student at the time and

502
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:33,639
Speaker 1: he was teaching high school. And he explains that he

503
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:37,000
Speaker 1: wanted to teach psychology concepts, but thought that this type

504
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:39,440
Speaker 1: of game might be better at teaching some of these

505
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:42,400
Speaker 1: psychology concepts, or at least more appealing to students. Then,

506
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:45,200
Speaker 1: I don't know, say a traditional lecture might be. I

507
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:48,479
Speaker 1: can certainly imagine why classes would have more fun playing

508
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 1: Mafia than they would listening to you talk about the

509
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: latest findings on the science of deception exactly now. Wired

510
00:28:55,760 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 1: interviewed David Off in two thousand ten, and it's it's

511
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:01,840
Speaker 1: a fun article to look up directly, the same one

512
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 1: we mentioned. I'll try to include a link to it

513
00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 1: on the landing page for this episode. He insisted on

514
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 1: being interviewed by Wired within the m m O world

515
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 1: of warcraft for starters. Dude, that's even better than saying

516
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:18,440
Speaker 1: I'll only do an interview in second life. Yeah, and

517
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 1: he was. He was extremely dodgy with some of his answers,

518
00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 1: so the resulting interview piece spence most of its time

519
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: placing him within the context of his Russian upbringing before

520
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:32,440
Speaker 1: moving to the United States. So he was born in

521
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:36,560
Speaker 1: comments Gurowski near the Kazakhstan border, and this was not

522
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:40,120
Speaker 1: too far from the nineteen fifty seven Uh kissed him

523
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 1: nuclear disaster that your Noble explosion, which we've discussed on

524
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 1: the show before, occurred in nineteen eighty six while he

525
00:29:47,720 --> 00:29:51,240
Speaker 1: was designing Mafia. He was teaching high school at the time.

526
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 1: As we discussed any tap of game to his students,

527
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 1: And the crazy thing is it kind of just spreads

528
00:29:56,440 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 1: out from there. Yeah, And one thing I love about

529
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 1: this article is it to Stab Publish, is that he's

530
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 1: about as weird as you would suspect from somebody who

531
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 1: invented this weird social deception virus that infects people's parties

532
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 1: all around the world. Now yeah, uh, Like, I know

533
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: I already mentioned video Drome once today, but it makes

534
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 1: me think, you know, a person who says I will

535
00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 1: only be interviewed within World of Warcraft is like Brian

536
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 1: Oblivion and video Drome who will only be interviewed on

537
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 1: television on a television. Oh man, there's so much potential

538
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 1: to create a horror franchise about some sort of a

539
00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:38,560
Speaker 1: social deception game like this that just spreads, and it

540
00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 1: spreads so easily based on just how addictive it is

541
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:44,280
Speaker 1: and the various benefits of play, as we've discussed already.

542
00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:47,560
Speaker 1: But but the crazy thing too here is that this

543
00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:52,320
Speaker 1: is largely a pre Internet age which is spreading, so

544
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:58,560
Speaker 1: it really doesn't start picking up online until after that's

545
00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:00,720
Speaker 1: when it it hits the the u US according to

546
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 1: accounts that that we were reading. And this is where

547
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:09,960
Speaker 1: Andrew Plotkin a k aesarf you might know, missarf Uh.

548
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 1: He he's the one who picked it up in the

549
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 1: US and updated it with the werewolf fluff and then

550
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:19,959
Speaker 1: began distributing it spreading the word of it online. So

551
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 1: he told Wired magazine the following in two thousand and ten.

552
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 1: I was fascinated with the game design. I had never

553
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 1: seen a game with such a pure strategic underpinning, no

554
00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:32,680
Speaker 1: mechanics to be strategic about. It was what poker would

555
00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:35,400
Speaker 1: be if you didn't play with the deck of cards

556
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 1: but bets solely on other people's bets. It shouldn't have worked,

557
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:42,720
Speaker 1: but it did. I think he's exactly right about that.

558
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: Like it's it's kind of hard to understand what's so

559
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 1: appealing about the game until you play it. And I

560
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: wonder out there, if you're somebody who's never played this

561
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:53,560
Speaker 1: game before and you're listening and you don't get it,

562
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:57,520
Speaker 1: You're like, what is fun about this? It just sounds boring.

563
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 1: You've got to try it. I suspect your mind will

564
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:04,680
Speaker 1: be changed, or maybe this is an occasion for more

565
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: hate mail. And I should point out to that the

566
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 1: game is is so simple that not only is it

567
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 1: a popular physical parlor game like that where people physically

568
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:17,080
Speaker 1: gather into space and play with each other. It also

569
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:20,960
Speaker 1: is played a lot online in online communities because you

570
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 1: don't have to have a spec. As long as you

571
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: have a basic social interaction platform, like just a basic

572
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 1: chat room, you can play a Werewolf. Yeah. You really

573
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 1: don't need much much more, as long as you have

574
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:36,960
Speaker 1: some method of of randomizing the roles, which is a

575
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 1: pretty simple programming feat. That's all you need. As long

576
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:43,800
Speaker 1: as you've got some kind of side messaging private messaging service. Yeah,

577
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:45,520
Speaker 1: you can do it now. Another thing I love about

578
00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 1: Werewolf is how closely it resembles a couple of key movies,

579
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 1: that one one of which I know that you love

580
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 1: as well. I know where you're going, but hit the

581
00:32:56,400 --> 00:33:00,360
Speaker 1: first one first. Okay. So there's a nineteen four film

582
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 1: titled The Beast Must Die. It stars Peter Cushing, a

583
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 1: thirty four year old Michael Gambon Charles Gray seven. Yes, yes,

584
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 1: he played Blowfield. He was Blowfeld and Diamonds Are Forever,

585
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:18,800
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, he played the Criminologist and Rocky Horror,

586
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 1: and he also played microft homes on the Jeremy Brett

587
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 1: Granada Sherlock series. I'm sure he was great at that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

588
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 1: it was great and it was terrific and everything. He

589
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 1: is dry as a bone, yes, man, this is a

590
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 1: very dry British film, as one might expect, and it's

591
00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 1: a it's a werewolf Who've done it based in a

592
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 1: large part on the Agatha Christie book and movies, um

593
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:47,680
Speaker 1: and then there were none. So the film climaxes with

594
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 1: a scene in which everyone gathers in a parlor and

595
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 1: they're tested with I think a silver candlestick. They pass

596
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 1: it around to see who's a werewolf. And this is

597
00:33:58,200 --> 00:34:00,720
Speaker 1: the only movie that I know of to feature a

598
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:04,640
Speaker 1: werewolf break. This is a brief intermission for the audience

599
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:07,560
Speaker 1: to discuss their theories on who the werewolf is and

600
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:10,319
Speaker 1: then vote on the werewolf before you get the big

601
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 1: reveal in the movie. Now, the really great version of

602
00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:16,279
Speaker 1: this would be that the audience vote determines which real

603
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:19,319
Speaker 1: they load into the projector and becomes the werewolf in

604
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:22,719
Speaker 1: the final scene. Yeah, I that was not the case, though.

605
00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:25,200
Speaker 1: It was just a chance to discuss what you thought

606
00:34:25,239 --> 00:34:28,880
Speaker 1: about about the movie up to that point. But I

607
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:31,080
Speaker 1: feel like we need more werewolf breaks in our films,

608
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:34,280
Speaker 1: even in non werewolf films. Say, for instance, you're watching

609
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 1: Glen Gary Glen Ross the movie. Yeah, okay, there are

610
00:34:37,080 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 1: no actual werewolves in it, but there I think that

611
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 1: it's constructive to have a point where the audience talks

612
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:44,319
Speaker 1: about who might be a werewolf. Well, there's a there's

613
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:47,719
Speaker 1: a burglary scene, like you could say, pause to discuss film,

614
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 1: and everyone pauses and goes into an extremely profanity lace

615
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:56,680
Speaker 1: discussion about who broke into the office and stole those leads. Now,

616
00:34:56,680 --> 00:34:58,960
Speaker 1: another great scene that comes to mind that is very

617
00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:02,040
Speaker 1: reminiscent of Werewolf is, of course, the scene in John

618
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:06,160
Speaker 1: Carpenter filmed The Thing. I love it. It's the best

619
00:35:06,160 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 1: the scenes where you do you're doing the test to

620
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 1: determine who's got thing blood and who's got human blood.

621
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 1: That's right. If you've never seen The Thing, it's one

622
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:18,279
Speaker 1: of the best horror movies ever made, and it's it's

623
00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:20,840
Speaker 1: got what's so great about it, apart from just the

624
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 1: music and the cast and all that, is that it's

625
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:27,360
Speaker 1: got these scenes where they're trying to figure out who's

626
00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:29,920
Speaker 1: the thing that's right and uh. And in the original

627
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 1: John Carpenter adaptation and not the original film version of it,

628
00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:38,239
Speaker 1: obviously Howard hawks. Yeah, And in Carpenter's version, they test

629
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:42,919
Speaker 1: everyone's blood sample one by one, sticking a heated piece

630
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:45,560
Speaker 1: of copper wire in there to see if the blood

631
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:48,799
Speaker 1: acts to defend itself, because the blood would act independent

632
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:53,799
Speaker 1: of the individual, because it's a crazy shape shifting organism, right,

633
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:56,520
Speaker 1: Each part is its own organism and the thing, right,

634
00:35:57,000 --> 00:35:59,799
Speaker 1: And so that's the test in that version. However, in

635
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:03,360
Speaker 1: the two thousand eleven remake, which or it's kind of

636
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 1: a remake, it's kind of a prequel. Uh I thought

637
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:08,440
Speaker 1: it was still fun. A lot of a lot of

638
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 1: people kind of ragged on it, but they do an

639
00:36:10,560 --> 00:36:13,680
Speaker 1: alternate version of the test and by checking to see

640
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:17,800
Speaker 1: who's who lacks amalgam dental feeling of fillings because the

641
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:22,160
Speaker 1: theory is that the thing can't form inorganic matter or

642
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:24,680
Speaker 1: can't replicate it on getting matter. What So if you

643
00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:29,240
Speaker 1: practice good dental hygiene, they're just gonna burn you alive. Yeah,

644
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 1: it's not as satisfying, but but it's still amusing. That's

645
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:36,280
Speaker 1: kind of my that's my general review of the film. Okay,

646
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:37,759
Speaker 1: So if you're still with us and you haven't just

647
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 1: paused the podcast to go play We're Wolf with your friends.

648
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:43,200
Speaker 1: You're probably wondering, what is that stuff we referenced earlier

649
00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:47,120
Speaker 1: about We're Wolf showing up in academic literature. Well, We're

650
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:50,600
Speaker 1: Wolf is an interesting game from several standpoints, and one

651
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:54,719
Speaker 1: of those standpoints in in academic research would be game theory, right,

652
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:57,040
Speaker 1: that's right, Yeah, I mean in general, do you see

653
00:36:57,040 --> 00:37:00,840
Speaker 1: it popping up in a lot of different academic papers,

654
00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:04,839
Speaker 1: A lot of different psychological studies, even AI studies as

655
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:07,680
Speaker 1: well discussed, and a lot of it just comes down

656
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:09,319
Speaker 1: to the fact that this is a simple game that

657
00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:12,920
Speaker 1: depends heavily on deception and also social inter interaction and

658
00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:16,560
Speaker 1: observational skills good things to model in computers if you

659
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:20,919
Speaker 1: are very sinister and is David Off himself points out,

660
00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:23,279
Speaker 1: it's not a game you can master. So yeah, you

661
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 1: can do a certain amount of math in your heads

662
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:28,120
Speaker 1: sort of card counting, I guess, but it's only going

663
00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:31,080
Speaker 1: to get you so far, and it's ultimately difficult to

664
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 1: predict who is going to win. Uh, you know, werewolves

665
00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:37,080
Speaker 1: are humans, which is this is This is another wonderful

666
00:37:37,080 --> 00:37:40,719
Speaker 1: thing about it and another reason why gaming can go

667
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:42,840
Speaker 1: on till one or two in the morning, because you

668
00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:46,080
Speaker 1: don't reach that point where everyone's figured it out and

669
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 1: you've you've essentially beat the game, or you've evolved beyond

670
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:52,279
Speaker 1: this game and you need more complex games. The crazy thing,

671
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:53,839
Speaker 1: of course about all of this is that the game

672
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:57,160
Speaker 1: started out as a sort of psychological exercise and he

673
00:37:57,200 --> 00:37:59,920
Speaker 1: comes for comes around full circle and becoming a tool

674
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:03,759
Speaker 1: in various psychological experiments, or or a tool used to

675
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:07,719
Speaker 1: generate data sets for psychological experiments. And remember how we

676
00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:11,000
Speaker 1: said that you don't need a board, you don't need dice,

677
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 1: you don't need any other materials. You just need that

678
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:16,440
Speaker 1: card the glance at once and then stick in your

679
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:18,839
Speaker 1: pocket or you know, push up under your your butt

680
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:23,040
Speaker 1: while you play. That isn't that's another key advantage here there.

681
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:25,840
Speaker 1: The cards are just initial reference points, so there's really

682
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:31,040
Speaker 1: no reason to break from communication and immersion with other players.

683
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:34,480
Speaker 1: This is especially important for studies that factor in gaze pattern.

684
00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 1: So it's in a way, it's it's again it's like

685
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:40,919
Speaker 1: poker without the cards. It's just the pure social experiment, right. Yeah,

686
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:42,520
Speaker 1: you don't have to look at your cards, you don't

687
00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:45,680
Speaker 1: have to go examine your character sheet. You're just in

688
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, like there's a there's a game that

689
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:53,200
Speaker 1: has some similar style to it called Spyfall that came

690
00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:55,640
Speaker 1: out a few years back, and it's one of these

691
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 1: that if you're if you're up for the work, you

692
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:00,839
Speaker 1: can create a pin and paper version of it, but

693
00:39:01,040 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 1: you generally have to buy a set. But it's a

694
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 1: game where there's a lot of fun social interaction, but

695
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 1: you end up referencing sheets a lot to remind yourself,

696
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:11,839
Speaker 1: like what are the possible locations to guests in the

697
00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 1: course of play. It's still a fun game, but there

698
00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:17,920
Speaker 1: is a distraction uh element to it that is not

699
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:21,760
Speaker 1: present in Werewolf. Okay, so we're going to game theory, psychology,

700
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:24,920
Speaker 1: and artificial intelligence. Let's look at game theory first. How

701
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:26,880
Speaker 1: how does this game figure into game theory? Well, I

702
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:28,840
Speaker 1: guess we just need to define what game theory is

703
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:31,600
Speaker 1: real quick for anyone who's not familiar with it. Uh.

704
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker 1: Its origins lie with John von Neuman and Oscar morgen Stern,

705
00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:39,960
Speaker 1: and they introduced game theory to the world in with

706
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 1: theory of Games and Economic behavior. So basically, this is

707
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:49,320
Speaker 1: the study of systems that have differential payoffs and different

708
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:54,719
Speaker 1: actors within them that have competing motivations. Right, that's right.

709
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:57,800
Speaker 1: As David k. Levine of the Department of Economics that

710
00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 1: u c. L A. Points out, it's an econom mistake

711
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:04,400
Speaker 1: on what psychologist would call the study of social situations.

712
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:08,440
Speaker 1: And you have two branches of game theory broad branches.

713
00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:10,839
Speaker 1: You have cooperative and you have non cooperative. I think

714
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 1: these are pretty straightforward. And then you have sub branches

715
00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 1: that include decision theory, general equilibrium theory, and mechanism design theory. Now,

716
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:22,640
Speaker 1: if you've seen papers on game theory before, or explanations

717
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:24,759
Speaker 1: of game theory before, one thing you're going to see

718
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:28,319
Speaker 1: a lot of is, for example, tables of payoffs where

719
00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 1: you can have axes along a table that show different

720
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:35,280
Speaker 1: kinds of decisions you can make within this system. Whatever

721
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:39,160
Speaker 1: the system is, applies to various you know, vast different

722
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 1: kinds of situations, but different decisions you can make within

723
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:45,719
Speaker 1: the system, and what the probability of different payoffs for

724
00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:48,919
Speaker 1: those decisions is. Yeah, they create the creation of, say

725
00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:52,720
Speaker 1: a matrix that shows you what the different payoffs are

726
00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:58,600
Speaker 1: based on different player decisions. Like the classic example of

727
00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:01,600
Speaker 1: this is of course, the the Prisoner's dilemma. Yeah, so

728
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:04,800
Speaker 1: this is a game where it's a very simple version

729
00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:07,120
Speaker 1: of a game where you don't know what the other

730
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 1: player is doing, but you can make smarter decisions and

731
00:41:10,640 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 1: less smart decisions depending on what the potential payoffs and

732
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:17,880
Speaker 1: punishments are for different decisions you could make. Yeah, and

733
00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:20,600
Speaker 1: when we say game, it's not a fun parlor game

734
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:22,360
Speaker 1: now the same my werewolf is. But it's just the

735
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 1: mechanics of it are simple and and fairly fairly interesting.

736
00:41:26,880 --> 00:41:30,600
Speaker 1: The idea is that you have two prisoners. They each

737
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:33,280
Speaker 1: were brought in because they're suspected of robbing a bank,

738
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:36,239
Speaker 1: and they have money stashed away somewhere, and then the

739
00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:38,440
Speaker 1: police are trying to get each one in a separate

740
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 1: room to turn on the other. So, so rat out

741
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:45,120
Speaker 1: your buddy and you'll go free. If neither rats, then

742
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:48,920
Speaker 1: they both got walk free and get their fifty share

743
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:53,439
Speaker 1: of the stolen money fifty percent. What if I want

744
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:56,000
Speaker 1: more percent? Well, then you've got to be willing not

745
00:41:56,080 --> 00:42:00,279
Speaker 1: only to rat out your partner, but be darn sure

746
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:02,760
Speaker 1: that they are not going to rat you out, because

747
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:05,880
Speaker 1: they're faced with the same problem exactly. So if you

748
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 1: both rat each other out, then you both go to prison,

749
00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:11,920
Speaker 1: and that money just rots in a hole somewhere. But

750
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:15,759
Speaker 1: if you rat them out and they don't rat out you,

751
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:17,560
Speaker 1: then you get to keep all of it and they

752
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:20,680
Speaker 1: rot in a whole somewhere or at least in the penitentiary.

753
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:24,839
Speaker 1: So yeah, depending on what the different types of payoffs are,

754
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:27,960
Speaker 1: there are ways of solving this game. And I guess

755
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:32,000
Speaker 1: in the case where you're comparing money versus jail time,

756
00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:34,520
Speaker 1: you would have to sort of render the jail time

757
00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:37,359
Speaker 1: in a monetary value or something. But you can work

758
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:40,880
Speaker 1: out probabilities of what your best decision should be given

759
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: decision matrices like this. Now, as you can imagine, this

760
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:48,320
Speaker 1: relates to Werewolf, because you have it's a it's a

761
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 1: great opportunity to try and and chart out the motivations

762
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:55,680
Speaker 1: and respective payoffs for both villagers and werewolves. Yeah. Now,

763
00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:58,480
Speaker 1: part of the problem with Werewolf, though, is it highly

764
00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:02,160
Speaker 1: it depends very much what variables you allow to come

765
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:05,239
Speaker 1: into play, because as you've said, the game is deceptively

766
00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:08,400
Speaker 1: simple at its core, but there's all this stuff going

767
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:11,240
Speaker 1: on and it that makes it more complicated than the

768
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:13,960
Speaker 1: simple rules would lead you to believe. Yes, and then

769
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:15,920
Speaker 1: you have, of course, all these social elements you're coming

770
00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:18,839
Speaker 1: into play as well, especially in an opening round, like

771
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:22,320
Speaker 1: how do you how do you create a proper probabilities

772
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 1: for Hey, Ramsey has a really long beard and looks

773
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:27,880
Speaker 1: kind of like a werewolf, So we're going to just

774
00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:31,239
Speaker 1: blindly accuse him of murdering a villager. Well, I mean,

775
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:33,640
Speaker 1: we would say that in reality, since we know the

776
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:36,680
Speaker 1: cards are distributed at random, that would be basically a

777
00:43:36,760 --> 00:43:41,479
Speaker 1: random accusation. But I've seen this that that first round

778
00:43:41,560 --> 00:43:45,320
Speaker 1: random accusation pick up a lot of steam because ultimately

779
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:48,680
Speaker 1: there there are no real world stakes to Werewolf. Of course,

780
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:52,879
Speaker 1: the question is do players actually do any better when

781
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:55,440
Speaker 1: they're playing with some kind of strategy than they would

782
00:43:55,480 --> 00:43:57,879
Speaker 1: if they were playing randomly. We'll come back to that,

783
00:43:58,400 --> 00:43:59,840
Speaker 1: all right. So we're not going to hit you with

784
00:43:59,880 --> 00:44:03,160
Speaker 1: a bunch of matrices and equations here, And we also

785
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 1: can't possibly cover every study, every proproposal, every research project

786
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:10,640
Speaker 1: to use Mafia or Werewolf, but we're gonna touch on

787
00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:13,040
Speaker 1: some of the interesting studies and it's worth recognizing some

788
00:44:13,120 --> 00:44:16,760
Speaker 1: of the recurring features of these studies. So more often

789
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:19,760
Speaker 1: than not, you're going to encounter a very boiled down

790
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:23,840
Speaker 1: version of the Werewolf rules. So no cupids or anything, right, Like,

791
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:28,200
Speaker 1: generally they're gonna be most interested with just villagers and werewolves,

792
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:31,600
Speaker 1: no detectives, no seers or what have you, because let's

793
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:34,040
Speaker 1: face it, those are those are pretty great mechanics, just

794
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:37,240
Speaker 1: right out of the box. Right. And also we mentioned

795
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:40,239
Speaker 1: the social dynamics that come into play, and these again

796
00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:43,160
Speaker 1: can be very difficult to model. So you might be wondering,

797
00:44:43,200 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 1: as a matter of course, generally, who wins when you

798
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:50,080
Speaker 1: play this game you've got werewolves versus villagers. Is there

799
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 1: is there a standard way to predict who wins more often? Well,

800
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:56,520
Speaker 1: there was a probability paper called a Mathematical Model of

801
00:44:56,560 --> 00:45:00,719
Speaker 1: the Mafia Game in by PYOTR mcdowah uh, and it

802
00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 1: found and this is a big this is a big caveat,

803
00:45:03,719 --> 00:45:07,680
Speaker 1: but it found in a simulation where all killings are random,

804
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:11,440
Speaker 1: so nobody has any special information. In each round, the

805
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:16,040
Speaker 1: villagers execute somebody random and the werewolves kill somebody random.

806
00:45:16,040 --> 00:45:18,960
Speaker 1: In this version of play quote, it turns out that

807
00:45:19,040 --> 00:45:22,680
Speaker 1: a relatively small number of the Mafia members i e.

808
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:25,880
Speaker 1: Proportional to the square root of the total number of

809
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:29,520
Speaker 1: players gives an equal winning chance for both groups. So

810
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:32,320
Speaker 1: if your number of mafia members is about the square

811
00:45:32,440 --> 00:45:35,560
Speaker 1: root of the total number of players. It should be

812
00:45:35,640 --> 00:45:38,720
Speaker 1: roughly fifty fifty. But the game isn't always that simple,

813
00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:42,800
Speaker 1: and maybe the maybe players are better than random chance.

814
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 1: What do you think, Robert, Yeah, I mean, especially when

815
00:45:46,239 --> 00:45:48,759
Speaker 1: you factor in all these just additional aspects of the

816
00:45:48,760 --> 00:45:52,000
Speaker 1: social dynamics. Uh. So the author here, he has another

817
00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:54,560
Speaker 1: quote that I think sums up the difficulties of modeling

818
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:58,360
Speaker 1: the game. He says, quote a dry mathematical model maybe

819
00:45:58,360 --> 00:46:01,759
Speaker 1: a backbone of a more complex one, but certainly is

820
00:46:01,800 --> 00:46:04,839
Speaker 1: not enough to describe a real game. During course of play,

821
00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:08,920
Speaker 1: citizens gain some information, either by discovering another's identity by

822
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:14,080
Speaker 1: themselves or trying to catch messages. Furthermore, voting maybe subject

823
00:46:14,080 --> 00:46:17,919
Speaker 1: to some kind of witch hut mentality. Moreover, rarely are

824
00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:20,640
Speaker 1: all players the same. Usually they are ones with higher

825
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:23,759
Speaker 1: and lower influence on the others. Right, so some people

826
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:26,440
Speaker 1: are just really good at leading the angry mobs to

827
00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:30,360
Speaker 1: drag somebody to the gallows. Uh. Sometimes people do actually

828
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:33,600
Speaker 1: get some kind of useful information in the course of play.

829
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 1: I discovered a section in a book um that goes

830
00:46:38,040 --> 00:46:40,879
Speaker 1: into some of these interesting variations on the game and

831
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:44,120
Speaker 1: so so Robert, see if you'll follow me down this path,

832
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:46,720
Speaker 1: I want to see how this comparison to your werewolf experience.

833
00:46:46,760 --> 00:46:49,560
Speaker 1: So the American writer Adam gott Nick, you might know

834
00:46:49,680 --> 00:46:53,040
Speaker 1: him from good essays in the New Yorker. Yeah stuffs

835
00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:55,880
Speaker 1: come up on here before Yeah um. He published a

836
00:46:55,880 --> 00:46:58,879
Speaker 1: book in two thousand and eight called Through the Children's Game,

837
00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:01,040
Speaker 1: A Home in New York, which is basically a memoir

838
00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 1: about life in New York City, especially after nine eleven,

839
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:07,120
Speaker 1: And in one section of the book he talks about

840
00:47:07,160 --> 00:47:11,160
Speaker 1: this period where his friends have become addicted to a

841
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:15,239
Speaker 1: variant of Werewolf. Though the version they plays Mafia. You know,

842
00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 1: you can't judge them too harshly. They are in New York. Uh,

843
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:21,440
Speaker 1: so that's a touchstone for them. And they play in

844
00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:25,719
Speaker 1: groups of fifteen to twenty with three Mafia a narrator

845
00:47:25,840 --> 00:47:30,560
Speaker 1: called God one commandante who's the detective character basically the

846
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:33,080
Speaker 1: same as the Seer, and then the rest are villagers.

847
00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:35,960
Speaker 1: That's a big game. I like it. So Gotten Ex

848
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:39,040
Speaker 1: played a lot, and he reports that the villagers win

849
00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:42,360
Speaker 1: more often than the Mafia. So a minute ago we

850
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:45,520
Speaker 1: saw that mathematically, if if players are doing no better

851
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:48,520
Speaker 1: than random, you should predict about a fifty fifty chance

852
00:47:48,680 --> 00:47:51,440
Speaker 1: for each team to win. But Gottenix says the villagers

853
00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:54,120
Speaker 1: win more often, and he says that in his experience,

854
00:47:54,200 --> 00:47:57,800
Speaker 1: the best starting strategy if you're a villager is simply

855
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 1: to look at everybody's face as and as God commands

856
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:03,919
Speaker 1: you to open your eyes. And basically what you do

857
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:06,239
Speaker 1: is you just look around and you try to get

858
00:48:06,280 --> 00:48:09,160
Speaker 1: a feeling for who looks guilty, believe it or not,

859
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 1: he says in his in his experience, this works better

860
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 1: than you would expect, which if he's correct about that,

861
00:48:15,640 --> 00:48:17,719
Speaker 1: that would indicate that we do have some kind of

862
00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 1: natural guiltiness detection system built in how we recognize other

863
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:24,960
Speaker 1: people's faces. We might get to more about that in

864
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:27,319
Speaker 1: a study we look at in a minute. But as

865
00:48:27,400 --> 00:48:30,759
Speaker 1: the game goes on, he says, deductive reasoning becomes more important.

866
00:48:30,800 --> 00:48:33,680
Speaker 1: So you look for, say, patterns and who gets killed

867
00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:36,880
Speaker 1: after accusing whom, So you might start to notice that

868
00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:39,840
Speaker 1: everyone who accuses Alice of being part of the werewolf

869
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:42,560
Speaker 1: mafia tends to get killed the very next night. You

870
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 1: can probably guess what's going on. Then again, they might

871
00:48:45,640 --> 00:48:47,480
Speaker 1: just be trying to throw you off the track people

872
00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:52,240
Speaker 1: are crafty um got Nick writes that the ostensible pleasure

873
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:55,319
Speaker 1: of the game is in testing how good you are

874
00:48:55,360 --> 00:48:58,240
Speaker 1: at lying uh, and how good you are at spotting

875
00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:02,240
Speaker 1: lying behavior, and others like this captivating question. You always

876
00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:05,160
Speaker 1: wonder how good you are at spotting a liar, because

877
00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:07,160
Speaker 1: it's hard to know in real life. Like I was

878
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:09,919
Speaker 1: talking about earlier, real life is full of so much

879
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 1: ambiguity in questions that are never resolved, and trying to

880
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:16,040
Speaker 1: root out the deception of other people. And there's one

881
00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:19,040
Speaker 1: excellent section. I just wanted to read a quote from

882
00:49:19,040 --> 00:49:21,719
Speaker 1: his book and see if it matches with your experience,

883
00:49:21,840 --> 00:49:25,520
Speaker 1: so goth Nick writes, quote, The really fascinating thing about

884
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:29,640
Speaker 1: Mafia is seeing how much pure irrationality lingers in its play,

885
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:33,600
Speaker 1: how little real deduction, and how much sheer panic govern

886
00:49:33,719 --> 00:49:37,600
Speaker 1: its conduct. The game quickly breaks down as social groups

887
00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:41,480
Speaker 1: will into small circles of belief, which become lynch mobs

888
00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:45,360
Speaker 1: of mistrust on the next turn. As these small circles

889
00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:49,000
Speaker 1: within the group form and break the emotional authenticity of

890
00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:54,040
Speaker 1: the alliances, The felt pleasure of trusting another is startlingly

891
00:49:54,239 --> 00:49:58,240
Speaker 1: frightening lee real. I think it's Larry. It must be Larry,

892
00:49:58,280 --> 00:50:02,160
Speaker 1: George says to you, filling his eyes with sincere persuasiveness,

893
00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:08,200
Speaker 1: leaning forward, confident, conspiring, and you nod with conspiratorial glee. Yes,

894
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:11,560
Speaker 1: it must be Larry, look at him, and for that moment,

895
00:50:11,640 --> 00:50:15,239
Speaker 1: the bond between you and George is so intense as

896
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:18,520
Speaker 1: to overshadow your general and complete lack of interest in

897
00:50:18,560 --> 00:50:22,080
Speaker 1: George as a person. You and George against the mafia,

898
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:26,319
Speaker 1: But then the quick nightly shadow intrudes, what if George

899
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:30,040
Speaker 1: is the mafia? Yet the proper suspicions, though they rise,

900
00:50:30,200 --> 00:50:34,359
Speaker 1: rarely override these instant bonds. The impulse to trust and

901
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:37,960
Speaker 1: go on trusting a confidant is so strong that it

902
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:43,640
Speaker 1: often survives even overwhelming evidence that the confidant is a rat. So, Robert,

903
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:45,840
Speaker 1: you've played a lot. Does this match your experience? Do

904
00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:49,480
Speaker 1: you think that that the game really, more than anything else,

905
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:54,719
Speaker 1: hinges on establishing bonds and connections with other players. Um.

906
00:50:54,760 --> 00:50:56,360
Speaker 1: I think it is a huge part of it, and

907
00:50:56,400 --> 00:51:00,279
Speaker 1: it it gets back to that sort of icebreaker quality

908
00:51:00,320 --> 00:51:02,880
Speaker 1: of the game, because I've certainly played it in settings

909
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:06,279
Speaker 1: where I don't know a lot of people and they'll

910
00:51:06,320 --> 00:51:08,400
Speaker 1: be like a large portion of the group that is,

911
00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:11,759
Speaker 1: you know, another friend group that I'm not privy to.

912
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:14,880
Speaker 1: It's interesting to play in a group like that because

913
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:19,320
Speaker 1: he mentioned connection, the connection that exists during these accusations

914
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:21,760
Speaker 1: in the in the middle of all of this debate,

915
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:24,680
Speaker 1: and it does give you this this amazing chance to

916
00:51:24,719 --> 00:51:28,360
Speaker 1: have this really intense connection with somebody that you you

917
00:51:28,719 --> 00:51:30,759
Speaker 1: maybe even not even sure what their name is right now.

918
00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:33,360
Speaker 1: You just know them as oh, well, they're they're the

919
00:51:33,360 --> 00:51:36,640
Speaker 1: they're the the bread baker in the medieval town, and

920
00:51:36,680 --> 00:51:38,799
Speaker 1: that's the that's maybe the as much as you know

921
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:42,200
Speaker 1: about their life, but you have this intense connection based

922
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:45,760
Speaker 1: on the game. Um like. By the way, that's another

923
00:51:45,800 --> 00:51:48,960
Speaker 1: reason as a as the game master, I like to

924
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:51,120
Speaker 1: dish out the different or not dish them out, but

925
00:51:51,160 --> 00:51:53,400
Speaker 1: ask people to choose a role in the medieval village

926
00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:56,840
Speaker 1: because it gives you something to refer to. If you

927
00:51:56,880 --> 00:52:00,440
Speaker 1: don't know their name yet, you can just say, oh,

928
00:52:00,440 --> 00:52:02,359
Speaker 1: if you can't remember, it's Carroll, you can just say.

929
00:52:02,640 --> 00:52:06,719
Speaker 1: And then the cobbler of the town, uh is found dead.

930
00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:10,480
Speaker 1: You don't have to say care, Uh, well, I've got

931
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:14,440
Speaker 1: an observation along similar lines. Got Nick says another part

932
00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:16,719
Speaker 1: of what's great about the game is it eliminates the

933
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:20,520
Speaker 1: need for other conversation and small talk with your neighbors

934
00:52:20,560 --> 00:52:23,560
Speaker 1: at a party, he says, quote, instead of telling them

935
00:52:23,560 --> 00:52:27,520
Speaker 1: elaborate social lies in an unformed context, you get to

936
00:52:27,520 --> 00:52:31,640
Speaker 1: tell them elaborate social lies in a formal one. Yeah. Yeah,

937
00:52:31,920 --> 00:52:35,080
Speaker 1: this comes back to just the immersion of the Werewolf

938
00:52:35,120 --> 00:52:38,600
Speaker 1: gaming experience, because it is often the case where people

939
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:40,640
Speaker 1: just go they just go all in on it, and

940
00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:42,520
Speaker 1: they're not gonna be talking about anything else. They're not

941
00:52:42,560 --> 00:52:45,240
Speaker 1: talking about the you know, the day that everyone had,

942
00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:48,319
Speaker 1: or or what supper was like. They are just all

943
00:52:48,400 --> 00:52:54,919
Speaker 1: in firing along these these these new communicative pathways. Yeah.

944
00:52:55,120 --> 00:52:58,040
Speaker 1: One more dynamic, he mentions, is that the game is

945
00:52:58,080 --> 00:53:03,440
Speaker 1: actually filled with many games based on existing relationships. Specifically,

946
00:53:03,719 --> 00:53:07,600
Speaker 1: he singles out couples that are playing. Each couple tries

947
00:53:07,680 --> 00:53:10,840
Speaker 1: to catch the other, the partner in that couple lying,

948
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:14,560
Speaker 1: and focuses primarily on whether they should be suspicious of

949
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:18,799
Speaker 1: their own partner. Does that match your experience? Yeah? Yeah,

950
00:53:18,840 --> 00:53:21,160
Speaker 1: I mean, especially in that opening round of play, they

951
00:53:21,160 --> 00:53:23,759
Speaker 1: don't have anything else to go on except existing real

952
00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:26,839
Speaker 1: world social connections. A lot of times and those those

953
00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:30,680
Speaker 1: end up being used and then when people start making accusations, uh,

954
00:53:30,719 --> 00:53:33,600
Speaker 1: those shows social dynamics come into play as well. It's

955
00:53:33,600 --> 00:53:36,600
Speaker 1: another reason I really like the cupid role because you

956
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:39,600
Speaker 1: get into this like why why does the cupid choose

957
00:53:39,640 --> 00:53:42,480
Speaker 1: these two people to be star crossed lovers? You know,

958
00:53:42,680 --> 00:53:46,440
Speaker 1: because they're actually a couple. Is it because they were

959
00:53:46,480 --> 00:53:49,319
Speaker 1: like teasing each other early in the evening or it's

960
00:53:49,360 --> 00:53:52,319
Speaker 1: just hilarious to think of them as lovers to make

961
00:53:52,360 --> 00:53:55,279
Speaker 1: them embarrassed. Yeah, yeah, so it add that is a

962
00:53:55,440 --> 00:53:59,040
Speaker 1: case where it adds this extra level of of interaction. Uh,

963
00:53:59,080 --> 00:54:02,640
Speaker 1: not only with the in game social dynamics, but the

964
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:05,759
Speaker 1: real world social dynamics as well. Right, it's it's like

965
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:11,040
Speaker 1: dad humor, like tell us about your boyfriend exactly. Okay,

966
00:54:11,080 --> 00:54:12,879
Speaker 1: we should take a quick break and when we come back,

967
00:54:12,960 --> 00:54:15,560
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the science of deception and

968
00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:31,080
Speaker 1: were wolf death by can't do and Beneath was about

969
00:54:31,080 --> 00:54:36,120
Speaker 1: a human she should never pretend to be a werewolf?

970
00:54:38,680 --> 00:54:47,680
Speaker 1: What does those werewolves triumph? Again? Unfortunately I was the seer.

971
00:54:48,880 --> 00:54:55,040
Speaker 1: I knew that she was away. You never got and

972
00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:58,040
Speaker 1: I never got to be the werewolves. And the first

973
00:54:58,040 --> 00:55:00,440
Speaker 1: thing I was gonna do is declare that I was

974
00:55:00,520 --> 00:55:04,719
Speaker 1: the he here and in point out the werewolf. Right,

975
00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:07,640
Speaker 1: that would have put a whole different dynamic that we

976
00:55:07,640 --> 00:55:11,759
Speaker 1: had not inexperience. That's what I'm saying. You good thing.

977
00:55:11,800 --> 00:55:19,560
Speaker 1: We off with your hand at the beginning. You're being

978
00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:23,719
Speaker 1: very aggressive like it, and I think you're the Werewolf.

979
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:27,520
Speaker 1: I don't know. How do I think Joe is, because

980
00:55:27,920 --> 00:55:34,279
Speaker 1: he's I'm seriously I would say, no, I'm trying. I'm

981
00:55:34,320 --> 00:55:37,040
Speaker 1: trying to get a vibe on somebody, and she actually

982
00:55:37,080 --> 00:55:41,799
Speaker 1: seems kind of sincere um. I think Robert. I think

983
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:49,520
Speaker 1: maybe Robert. I again, am just look at that devilish

984
00:55:49,640 --> 00:55:52,360
Speaker 1: grin on his face. This is the grind of someone

985
00:55:52,520 --> 00:55:56,640
Speaker 1: who knows perfectly well that their soul was pure. My

986
00:55:56,760 --> 00:56:03,560
Speaker 1: hard work has a scrubbed away whatever minor satanic delight.

987
00:56:03,920 --> 00:56:10,480
Speaker 1: Look at this now. Earlier we mentioned a Wired article

988
00:56:10,520 --> 00:56:12,200
Speaker 1: from two thousand and ten about the game, and it

989
00:56:12,280 --> 00:56:17,040
Speaker 1: addressed this question of the scientific study of deception and

990
00:56:17,080 --> 00:56:19,880
Speaker 1: what what psychology can tell us about deception within the

991
00:56:19,920 --> 00:56:24,520
Speaker 1: game of Werewolf. According to a gaming psychologist at the

992
00:56:24,680 --> 00:56:29,239
Speaker 1: London Metropolitan University named Simon Moore, there's actually not much

993
00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:33,319
Speaker 1: diversity in our skill at spotting liars. According to More,

994
00:56:34,040 --> 00:56:37,480
Speaker 1: there are not human lie detectors walking among us. Quote,

995
00:56:37,680 --> 00:56:40,279
Speaker 1: if you ask someone on the street, are they better

996
00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:43,320
Speaker 1: at detecting a liar than a police officer, they'll probably

997
00:56:43,360 --> 00:56:46,680
Speaker 1: say no. But a police officer and a general person

998
00:56:46,800 --> 00:56:51,080
Speaker 1: both have a fifty percent success rate at detecting liars. Man,

999
00:56:51,160 --> 00:56:55,000
Speaker 1: that's that's frustrating. You would hope there would be people

1000
00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:57,400
Speaker 1: who would be better at it among us. Yeah, I

1001
00:56:57,440 --> 00:57:00,160
Speaker 1: mean you certainly when you do start using lie as

1002
00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:03,040
Speaker 1: you become even more self conscious, do you think, oh,

1003
00:57:03,080 --> 00:57:06,080
Speaker 1: they're going to see right through it? But really they have, Yeah,

1004
00:57:06,120 --> 00:57:11,760
Speaker 1: exactly so, so that's at first. Though, certain circumstances, according

1005
00:57:11,800 --> 00:57:14,640
Speaker 1: to More, do tip the balance and change our ability

1006
00:57:14,680 --> 00:57:17,080
Speaker 1: to get away with lies and also to detect a

1007
00:57:17,160 --> 00:57:20,600
Speaker 1: lize in others. For example, when you're stressed, it's harder

1008
00:57:20,600 --> 00:57:23,000
Speaker 1: to get away with lying. Now we all know about

1009
00:57:23,040 --> 00:57:27,320
Speaker 1: the uh the fallibility of the polygraph tests a true

1010
00:57:27,400 --> 00:57:31,680
Speaker 1: lie detector test, but there is some truth to the

1011
00:57:31,720 --> 00:57:34,360
Speaker 1: principle on which the polygraph test is based. It's just

1012
00:57:34,400 --> 00:57:38,720
Speaker 1: not necessarily as reliable as it is often depicted in fiction,

1013
00:57:38,920 --> 00:57:41,280
Speaker 1: or maybe even in some people who actually use it.

1014
00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:44,920
Speaker 1: But the principle it's based on is that lying causes

1015
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:48,480
Speaker 1: the stress physiological stress reactions in the body that you know,

1016
00:57:48,560 --> 00:57:50,720
Speaker 1: messes with your heart rate, it messes with your blood

1017
00:57:50,720 --> 00:57:54,080
Speaker 1: pressure and stuff like that. Um, and as you get

1018
00:57:54,120 --> 00:57:57,960
Speaker 1: more stressed, it gets harder and harder to lie. So

1019
00:57:58,200 --> 00:58:00,440
Speaker 1: this would sort of mean that at the beginning of

1020
00:58:00,520 --> 00:58:02,640
Speaker 1: the game, lying might be easy when there's not much

1021
00:58:02,680 --> 00:58:06,080
Speaker 1: pressure on you. As other players get eliminated and the

1022
00:58:06,160 --> 00:58:09,680
Speaker 1: spotlight narrows on you and the stakes of the game

1023
00:58:09,720 --> 00:58:12,400
Speaker 1: go up, More predicts that it's going to be harder

1024
00:58:12,400 --> 00:58:14,960
Speaker 1: and harder for people to get away with lying without

1025
00:58:15,000 --> 00:58:18,480
Speaker 1: people seeing through their facade. Yeah, because early in the game,

1026
00:58:18,920 --> 00:58:21,000
Speaker 1: especially if you have a larger group, it's easy to

1027
00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:24,800
Speaker 1: just sort of set there quietly and decide with this

1028
00:58:24,920 --> 00:58:28,720
Speaker 1: faction or another. But yeah, it is things. Is things proceed,

1029
00:58:28,840 --> 00:58:32,200
Speaker 1: you have to be outspoken, uh, otherwise people are going

1030
00:58:32,240 --> 00:58:35,800
Speaker 1: to be suspicious of your silence, right, And that actually

1031
00:58:35,840 --> 00:58:37,680
Speaker 1: is a factor in another study I'm going to mention

1032
00:58:37,720 --> 00:58:40,160
Speaker 1: in a minute now. More also says lots of our

1033
00:58:40,200 --> 00:58:43,600
Speaker 1: lives are lives of exaggeration. I think we probably know

1034
00:58:43,720 --> 00:58:46,800
Speaker 1: this from experience. People are more likely to sort of

1035
00:58:47,040 --> 00:58:51,680
Speaker 1: turn a half truth into a big exaggerated claim than

1036
00:58:51,720 --> 00:58:55,000
Speaker 1: they are to just blatantly say something that is completely

1037
00:58:55,080 --> 00:58:58,560
Speaker 1: untrue with no basis in reality. Right, people are more

1038
00:58:58,640 --> 00:59:01,040
Speaker 1: more likely to fudge than just to make up a

1039
00:59:01,080 --> 00:59:04,840
Speaker 1: total lie, and so blatant lies like I am not

1040
00:59:04,960 --> 00:59:08,400
Speaker 1: a werewolf when you know you are are more difficult

1041
00:59:08,440 --> 00:59:11,720
Speaker 1: than these kinds of exaggerations. But More also says it's

1042
00:59:11,760 --> 00:59:15,560
Speaker 1: easier to lie about straightforward information than to lie about

1043
00:59:15,600 --> 00:59:18,480
Speaker 1: your own emotional state. So if you're trying to put

1044
00:59:18,480 --> 00:59:20,919
Speaker 1: on a show of outrage, like you know, how could

1045
00:59:20,960 --> 00:59:23,400
Speaker 1: you accuse me of being a ware wolf? After all

1046
00:59:23,440 --> 00:59:26,760
Speaker 1: of our friendship or whatever, how could you accuse me?

1047
00:59:27,480 --> 00:59:30,560
Speaker 1: You quickly exhaust yourself, and More says that a person

1048
00:59:30,680 --> 00:59:32,800
Speaker 1: doing that is going to start to falter at this

1049
00:59:32,920 --> 00:59:36,720
Speaker 1: deceptive performance. The feigned outrage turns into sort of more

1050
00:59:36,800 --> 00:59:40,920
Speaker 1: simple objection, or turns into other emotions that are easier

1051
00:59:40,960 --> 00:59:44,440
Speaker 1: to fake, like aggression, and people will pick up on this.

1052
00:59:44,600 --> 00:59:47,120
Speaker 1: You start to look like a dirty rat. And this

1053
00:59:47,240 --> 00:59:51,400
Speaker 1: is given as an explanation for why the villagers actually

1054
00:59:51,440 --> 00:59:56,120
Speaker 1: win more often than a simple random choice would would predict.

1055
00:59:56,640 --> 00:59:59,040
Speaker 1: Villagers at some point do start to be able to

1056
00:59:59,080 --> 01:00:02,440
Speaker 1: notice people lying? And we have some some studies to

1057
01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:05,120
Speaker 1: back this up. Yeah really, yeah, some some studies that

1058
01:00:05,200 --> 01:00:09,680
Speaker 1: are generally conference proceedings here, So who knows exactly how

1059
01:00:09,720 --> 01:00:13,680
Speaker 1: correct these claims are. But these are some claimed findings

1060
01:00:13,720 --> 01:00:16,600
Speaker 1: on how to detect deception that we found related to

1061
01:00:16,640 --> 01:00:21,320
Speaker 1: the game Werewolf. So one was called are You a Werewolf?

1062
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:25,200
Speaker 1: Detecting deceptive roles and outcomes in a Conversational role playing game?

1063
01:00:25,240 --> 01:00:28,520
Speaker 1: And this was presented at a Acoustic Speech and Signal

1064
01:00:28,560 --> 01:00:33,600
Speaker 1: Processing in the I Tripoli International Conference. And the authors

1065
01:00:33,640 --> 01:00:37,080
Speaker 1: here created this automated method for detecting players determined to

1066
01:00:37,120 --> 01:00:42,080
Speaker 1: be liars by analyzing the acoustic properties of their speech patterns.

1067
01:00:42,120 --> 01:00:44,440
Speaker 1: So I thought that was interesting. Can a computer just

1068
01:00:44,560 --> 01:00:49,440
Speaker 1: listen to quantitative elements of what happens when somebody speaks

1069
01:00:50,120 --> 01:00:53,439
Speaker 1: and say I caught a liar here? So they tried

1070
01:00:53,440 --> 01:00:55,320
Speaker 1: to correlate that. They tried to find okay, can we

1071
01:00:55,400 --> 01:00:58,080
Speaker 1: can we listen with the computer and see does it

1072
01:00:58,200 --> 01:01:01,560
Speaker 1: detect patterns and lying? And they claimed that it did.

1073
01:01:01,920 --> 01:01:04,720
Speaker 1: They said their method could successfully predict the lying behavior

1074
01:01:04,840 --> 01:01:08,360
Speaker 1: better than chance just by listening to acoustic properties. What

1075
01:01:08,440 --> 01:01:11,120
Speaker 1: does this mean for human players. Well, one simple finding

1076
01:01:11,200 --> 01:01:16,200
Speaker 1: seemed to be that liars speak less, presumably to limit

1077
01:01:16,240 --> 01:01:19,840
Speaker 1: their risk of making revealing mistakes. This is interesting because

1078
01:01:19,880 --> 01:01:22,840
Speaker 1: one thing I've I've definitely seen before is you have

1079
01:01:22,840 --> 01:01:26,400
Speaker 1: a case where someone's a very outspoken werewolf critic. You know,

1080
01:01:26,440 --> 01:01:28,440
Speaker 1: they're very outspoken. They're they're going to be the lead

1081
01:01:28,480 --> 01:01:33,400
Speaker 1: detective in finding the murderers in the village. But then

1082
01:01:33,440 --> 01:01:36,840
Speaker 1: they'll come, uh, they'll come a game where there's suddenly

1083
01:01:36,880 --> 01:01:39,280
Speaker 1: a lot more quiet. They're not making all these acts.

1084
01:01:39,280 --> 01:01:41,120
Speaker 1: They're not they're not right at the front of the

1085
01:01:41,160 --> 01:01:43,760
Speaker 1: crowd with the pitch for it. And people notice and

1086
01:01:43,800 --> 01:01:47,680
Speaker 1: they say, well, John is kind of quiet this round,

1087
01:01:48,080 --> 01:01:52,280
Speaker 1: suspiciously quiet, as if perhaps he is a werewolf. Yeah,

1088
01:01:52,320 --> 01:01:55,120
Speaker 1: come on, Cynthia, didn't you have some zeal for werewolf

1089
01:01:55,200 --> 01:01:57,960
Speaker 1: killing in the last game. Yeah, suddenly you've got you've

1090
01:01:57,960 --> 01:02:02,480
Speaker 1: got soft on the anthropy. Yeah. So that does seem

1091
01:02:02,480 --> 01:02:04,600
Speaker 1: to be a good tell. People who are trying to

1092
01:02:04,640 --> 01:02:08,960
Speaker 1: maintain deception offer less information. They just talk less, And

1093
01:02:09,000 --> 01:02:11,480
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy to see why. This study seems to

1094
01:02:11,560 --> 01:02:16,120
Speaker 1: confirm that finding. Also, it found that quote the distribution

1095
01:02:16,200 --> 01:02:20,480
Speaker 1: of pitch and energy values are higher for liars. So,

1096
01:02:20,520 --> 01:02:23,280
Speaker 1: according to the study, if somebody is raising their voice

1097
01:02:23,280 --> 01:02:26,240
Speaker 1: in pitch and volume, they're slightly more likely to be

1098
01:02:26,280 --> 01:02:31,080
Speaker 1: a liar. Okay, that's interesting because I know that I

1099
01:02:31,160 --> 01:02:34,760
Speaker 1: have I sometimes raised my voice when I am I'm

1100
01:02:34,840 --> 01:02:38,280
Speaker 1: lying about not being a werewolf. Really, yeah, I'll be like, well,

1101
01:02:38,280 --> 01:02:40,880
Speaker 1: how dare you accuse me of that sort of thing? Now,

1102
01:02:40,960 --> 01:02:42,680
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to be careful, gonna kept keep it low.

1103
01:02:42,720 --> 01:02:46,320
Speaker 1: You gotta talk more, and you gotta stay calm. Yeah,

1104
01:02:46,360 --> 01:02:48,280
Speaker 1: but how do you stay calm about something like this?

1105
01:02:49,040 --> 01:02:51,200
Speaker 1: Are dying? How could you accuse me of being awarewolf?

1106
01:02:51,240 --> 01:02:53,280
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, I'm not aware wolf, and the reason

1107
01:02:53,400 --> 01:02:55,480
Speaker 1: is yeah. And this is where that this is actually

1108
01:02:55,480 --> 01:02:58,520
Speaker 1: where the fluff becomes nice sort of villager fluff, where

1109
01:02:58,520 --> 01:03:01,240
Speaker 1: you can say, how could I possible be the werewolf?

1110
01:03:01,280 --> 01:03:05,040
Speaker 1: I am the cobbler. I have to make shoes all night.

1111
01:03:05,080 --> 01:03:09,160
Speaker 1: If I was running around slaughtering townspeople, then everyone would

1112
01:03:09,200 --> 01:03:13,680
Speaker 1: be barefoot. Okay, So a couple more. One was a

1113
01:03:13,720 --> 01:03:17,800
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight paper by Jao and Sung which

1114
01:03:17,880 --> 01:03:21,479
Speaker 1: was called Cues to Deception in Online Chinese Groups. And

1115
01:03:21,840 --> 01:03:25,200
Speaker 1: this is a sample group of Chinese players playing online.

1116
01:03:25,520 --> 01:03:29,120
Speaker 1: The authors found that quote deceivers tended to communicate less.

1117
01:03:29,200 --> 01:03:32,120
Speaker 1: Yet again, so people who talked less are more likely

1118
01:03:32,160 --> 01:03:36,720
Speaker 1: to be liars. But also quote showed low complexity and

1119
01:03:36,920 --> 01:03:40,240
Speaker 1: this is in their speech meaning for example, shorter sentences

1120
01:03:40,280 --> 01:03:45,440
Speaker 1: and shorter words, and then they continue and high diversity,

1121
01:03:45,520 --> 01:03:49,720
Speaker 1: so that means for example, more unique words. So their

1122
01:03:49,840 --> 01:03:52,240
Speaker 1: analysis found that you want to look for a liar,

1123
01:03:52,280 --> 01:03:54,640
Speaker 1: look for the one who doesn't talk much. When they

1124
01:03:54,680 --> 01:03:57,560
Speaker 1: do talk, they might talk in shorter sentences or less

1125
01:03:57,600 --> 01:04:03,760
Speaker 1: complex words, but use more unique word choice. Interesting. Interesting, Okay,

1126
01:04:03,840 --> 01:04:08,560
Speaker 1: one more uh, This was paper called Detection of Deception

1127
01:04:08,640 --> 01:04:11,080
Speaker 1: in the Mafia Party Game. Obviously we've got some people

1128
01:04:11,120 --> 01:04:14,240
Speaker 1: who don't understand the benefits of wherewere And this one

1129
01:04:14,280 --> 01:04:17,440
Speaker 1: presented another automatic system for lie detection. This time it

1130
01:04:17,520 --> 01:04:21,240
Speaker 1: was based on facial cues, so the movements of eyebrows,

1131
01:04:21,240 --> 01:04:24,640
Speaker 1: eyes and mouths on videos. And this one's kind of

1132
01:04:24,680 --> 01:04:27,760
Speaker 1: hard to explain because it's hard to translate what they

1133
01:04:27,800 --> 01:04:31,240
Speaker 1: found about facial movement analysis into words here on this

1134
01:04:31,320 --> 01:04:34,000
Speaker 1: podcast in a useful way. But just quickly, some of

1135
01:04:34,040 --> 01:04:38,040
Speaker 1: their tentative findings apparently showed that I eyebrow and mouth

1136
01:04:38,120 --> 01:04:42,640
Speaker 1: movements caused by lying might be those more associated with fear, guilt,

1137
01:04:42,880 --> 01:04:46,760
Speaker 1: or delight, while truthful facial expressions might be those that

1138
01:04:46,800 --> 01:04:50,760
Speaker 1: you would more closely associate with sadness. Okay, but this

1139
01:04:50,840 --> 01:04:54,280
Speaker 1: is all with humans, right, humans, and arguably some werewolves.

1140
01:04:55,200 --> 01:04:56,640
Speaker 1: I don't know how the game would change if you

1141
01:04:56,640 --> 01:05:00,320
Speaker 1: had real werewolves playing among your party friends, but uh

1142
01:05:00,440 --> 01:05:02,600
Speaker 1: that that would be great if wherewolves were real, we'd

1143
01:05:02,600 --> 01:05:04,680
Speaker 1: have to get one of these studies and see how

1144
01:05:04,720 --> 01:05:07,040
Speaker 1: they played. But what we've not looked at so far

1145
01:05:07,360 --> 01:05:10,800
Speaker 1: is computerized players. That's right, and there there are a

1146
01:05:10,880 --> 01:05:13,960
Speaker 1: number of cool studies that looked at this. Because another

1147
01:05:14,000 --> 01:05:16,800
Speaker 1: great way to use were wolf is is if you're

1148
01:05:16,800 --> 01:05:20,480
Speaker 1: studying either lie detecting robots or robots that lie. And

1149
01:05:20,480 --> 01:05:22,720
Speaker 1: when I say robots, and of course using the fun

1150
01:05:22,840 --> 01:05:27,360
Speaker 1: version of robots, we're actually talking about uh programs and

1151
01:05:27,520 --> 01:05:32,120
Speaker 1: or or very soft AI to try and determine patterns

1152
01:05:32,120 --> 01:05:34,880
Speaker 1: of human behavior. Well, no, actually, so to clarify, I

1153
01:05:34,880 --> 01:05:36,920
Speaker 1: guess we have looked at a couple of papers that

1154
01:05:36,960 --> 01:05:41,000
Speaker 1: claim to have a method for determining some kind of

1155
01:05:41,040 --> 01:05:44,800
Speaker 1: automated lie detection. We haven't looked at AI liars yet,

1156
01:05:45,320 --> 01:05:48,560
Speaker 1: and we haven't, I guess, looked at like robust AI

1157
01:05:48,760 --> 01:05:52,880
Speaker 1: players that incorporate information about lie detection or that really

1158
01:05:52,920 --> 01:05:56,000
Speaker 1: try to uh to get in the mind of the liar,

1159
01:05:56,160 --> 01:05:59,320
Speaker 1: just more like they're detecting correlations and things sorted out

1160
01:05:59,320 --> 01:06:03,200
Speaker 1: by the humans. Anyway, let's let's let's look at some

1161
01:06:03,280 --> 01:06:06,120
Speaker 1: AI lying Okay, all right, Well, I was looking at

1162
01:06:06,920 --> 01:06:11,680
Speaker 1: a presentation titled the Great Deceivers, Virtual Agents and Believable Lies,

1163
01:06:12,200 --> 01:06:15,000
Speaker 1: and this was by the US at all. They'll come

1164
01:06:15,040 --> 01:06:17,120
Speaker 1: up again, And this was presented at the two thousand

1165
01:06:17,200 --> 01:06:22,760
Speaker 1: thirteen proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.

1166
01:06:22,800 --> 01:06:27,080
Speaker 1: So they used Werewolf, and they used Werewolf not Mafia,

1167
01:06:27,280 --> 01:06:30,480
Speaker 1: so thumbs up. They used it to test a two

1168
01:06:30,600 --> 01:06:35,400
Speaker 1: level theory of mind model for virtual agents. Now theory

1169
01:06:35,400 --> 01:06:37,920
Speaker 1: of mind, of course, just to refresh, that is our

1170
01:06:38,000 --> 01:06:43,800
Speaker 1: basic human ability to conceive the mind state of another person. Right,

1171
01:06:43,880 --> 01:06:46,960
Speaker 1: It's absolutely crucial for lying. Right, It's kind of hard

1172
01:06:47,000 --> 01:06:50,160
Speaker 1: to lie if you can't imagine what somebody else's mental

1173
01:06:50,200 --> 01:06:54,439
Speaker 1: state is, because in lying, you're trying to make their

1174
01:06:54,440 --> 01:06:58,360
Speaker 1: mental state not correspond to what you know to be true, Right,

1175
01:06:58,920 --> 01:07:01,400
Speaker 1: now why would they be doing this. Well, they wanted

1176
01:07:01,440 --> 01:07:05,120
Speaker 1: to see which version, either a a one level or

1177
01:07:05,160 --> 01:07:09,200
Speaker 1: two level theory of mind model, would would make this

1178
01:07:09,440 --> 01:07:13,080
Speaker 1: actor seem seem more socially intelligent. A one level or

1179
01:07:13,120 --> 01:07:15,480
Speaker 1: two level theory of mind model. Okay, so let me

1180
01:07:15,480 --> 01:07:18,400
Speaker 1: guess what that is. One level theory of mind is

1181
01:07:18,680 --> 01:07:21,040
Speaker 1: I know what you're thinking, or at least I'm imagining

1182
01:07:21,040 --> 01:07:24,560
Speaker 1: what you're thinking. Two level would be what I imagine

1183
01:07:24,600 --> 01:07:28,120
Speaker 1: what you're thinking about what I'm thinking. Yeah, you get

1184
01:07:28,160 --> 01:07:30,680
Speaker 1: into that hole? Would he tell me that this door

1185
01:07:30,760 --> 01:07:33,440
Speaker 1: leads to the center of the labyrinth? Sort of a situation.

1186
01:07:34,040 --> 01:07:37,800
Speaker 1: So you're you're modeling someone else's theory of mind in

1187
01:07:37,880 --> 01:07:40,520
Speaker 1: two level theory of mind. Right, So, so here's a

1188
01:07:40,560 --> 01:07:42,640
Speaker 1: quote from the paper, just to boil it all down.

1189
01:07:42,960 --> 01:07:46,720
Speaker 1: Two versions of the Werewolf Agent were implemented. One has

1190
01:07:46,760 --> 01:07:49,720
Speaker 1: a single level theory of mind, able to represent what

1191
01:07:49,840 --> 01:07:52,960
Speaker 1: victims believe, but not what victims think it or the

1192
01:07:52,960 --> 01:07:56,040
Speaker 1: other their victims believe. The second has a two level

1193
01:07:56,080 --> 01:07:59,000
Speaker 1: theory of mind, able to represent what victims think about

1194
01:07:59,080 --> 01:08:02,320
Speaker 1: what it knows, and in general, what victims think about

1195
01:08:02,360 --> 01:08:08,520
Speaker 1: the suspicions of others. And then both versions had inference

1196
01:08:08,640 --> 01:08:12,720
Speaker 1: rules to determine suspects. Now, I would generally imagine that

1197
01:08:12,960 --> 01:08:16,560
Speaker 1: a computer that tries to go two steps down the

1198
01:08:16,640 --> 01:08:20,760
Speaker 1: rabbit hole would be better at lying and detecting lies, right, Yeah,

1199
01:08:20,800 --> 01:08:22,759
Speaker 1: And that's that's pretty much what they found. They found

1200
01:08:22,800 --> 01:08:26,640
Speaker 1: that a two level theory of mind where wolf had

1201
01:08:26,680 --> 01:08:31,000
Speaker 1: a leg up on single level theory of mind villagers,

1202
01:08:31,320 --> 01:08:34,880
Speaker 1: and then a follow up test showed that that indeed,

1203
01:08:35,160 --> 01:08:39,040
Speaker 1: the two level theory of mind where wolves were also

1204
01:08:39,120 --> 01:08:43,439
Speaker 1: perceived as being more intelligent than a single level theory

1205
01:08:43,439 --> 01:08:45,679
Speaker 1: of mind where wolf. And of course this becomes important

1206
01:08:45,720 --> 01:08:47,640
Speaker 1: when you're just you're not talking about like how to

1207
01:08:47,800 --> 01:08:51,400
Speaker 1: build uh an ai that is going around deceiving people

1208
01:08:51,520 --> 01:08:53,760
Speaker 1: or certainly going around killing people in the night, but

1209
01:08:53,880 --> 01:08:57,680
Speaker 1: just how to create something that comes off as more human, right,

1210
01:08:58,280 --> 01:09:00,240
Speaker 1: I mean, it does sort of make you think that

1211
01:09:00,760 --> 01:09:03,920
Speaker 1: some of the same skills that are crucial for deception

1212
01:09:04,120 --> 01:09:08,439
Speaker 1: and constructing elaborate socialized for the people around us are

1213
01:09:08,520 --> 01:09:12,240
Speaker 1: the same skills that are good social lubricants and make

1214
01:09:12,320 --> 01:09:14,120
Speaker 1: us get along well with others. That would be a

1215
01:09:14,160 --> 01:09:17,720
Speaker 1: depressing finding, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's somewhat true. Yeah,

1216
01:09:17,800 --> 01:09:22,559
Speaker 1: this sort of thing is ultimately about creating chatbots for

1217
01:09:22,600 --> 01:09:26,040
Speaker 1: the future that feel more human when they're scamming you. Now,

1218
01:09:26,040 --> 01:09:29,439
Speaker 1: another presentation when we ran across UH from two thousand fourteen,

1219
01:09:29,520 --> 01:09:34,000
Speaker 1: and this was another I Tripoli International Conference UH presentation,

1220
01:09:34,120 --> 01:09:40,080
Speaker 1: and this was by Dasuki Katagami at all titled Investigation

1221
01:09:40,240 --> 01:09:46,080
Speaker 1: of the Effects of Nonverbal Information on Werewolf. Okay, and

1222
01:09:46,400 --> 01:09:48,639
Speaker 1: the wait, is this an AI werewolf or an AI

1223
01:09:48,680 --> 01:09:53,200
Speaker 1: werewolf detector? Um? It's the purpose of the research, they stated,

1224
01:09:53,320 --> 01:09:58,000
Speaker 1: was to develop an intelligent agent quote a werewolf, which

1225
01:09:58,080 --> 01:10:01,000
Speaker 1: is enabled to naturally play where a Wolf with humans.

1226
01:10:01,320 --> 01:10:04,920
Speaker 1: So it's it's all about machine learning. Their findings were

1227
01:10:05,000 --> 01:10:08,320
Speaker 1: quote we found that non verbal information in the game

1228
01:10:08,360 --> 01:10:12,360
Speaker 1: of where Wolf has importance to winning or losing the game, which,

1229
01:10:13,200 --> 01:10:15,000
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of an overstatement of the obvious,

1230
01:10:15,000 --> 01:10:17,280
Speaker 1: I guess, but here we see it UH proven out

1231
01:10:17,320 --> 01:10:22,320
Speaker 1: in this this cool AI werewolf study. Now, people sitting

1232
01:10:22,360 --> 01:10:27,040
Speaker 1: at home might be thinking, why are we specifically training

1233
01:10:27,200 --> 01:10:30,559
Speaker 1: computers to be good at killing us in the night

1234
01:10:30,600 --> 01:10:34,880
Speaker 1: and getting away with it? Well, again, it's it's it's

1235
01:10:34,880 --> 01:10:38,320
Speaker 1: more that these are extreme versions of the skills that

1236
01:10:38,360 --> 01:10:40,840
Speaker 1: we use every day. You know. It comes down to

1237
01:10:40,920 --> 01:10:44,840
Speaker 1: that CEO analogy we made earlier. Uh, the average person

1238
01:10:44,920 --> 01:10:48,879
Speaker 1: is not engaging in in these in such titillating versions

1239
01:10:48,920 --> 01:10:52,919
Speaker 1: of social interaction, but we're engaging in varying lesser versions

1240
01:10:53,000 --> 01:10:57,479
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, in the same way that you see, uh,

1241
01:10:57,800 --> 01:11:01,080
Speaker 1: animals wrestling at play and their children, you know, to

1242
01:11:01,160 --> 01:11:04,120
Speaker 1: sort of distill some of the main dynamics of physical

1243
01:11:04,160 --> 01:11:07,320
Speaker 1: struggle for survival. I guess this is sort of an

1244
01:11:07,320 --> 01:11:11,960
Speaker 1: adult version of wrestling with words and eye contact. Yeah,

1245
01:11:12,080 --> 01:11:15,680
Speaker 1: it's it's it's that it's that most primal of games,

1246
01:11:16,120 --> 01:11:19,360
Speaker 1: but done at the the abstract level, at the level

1247
01:11:19,400 --> 01:11:22,799
Speaker 1: of social interaction, rather than just rolling around on the ground.

1248
01:11:22,960 --> 01:11:26,880
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up the children, Joe, because there

1249
01:11:26,920 --> 01:11:29,120
Speaker 1: was I'm gonna mention real real quick here that there

1250
01:11:29,200 --> 01:11:32,519
Speaker 1: was an additional study I came across Werewolves, Cheats and

1251
01:11:32,560 --> 01:11:36,240
Speaker 1: Cultural Sensitivity by limb at All And this was a

1252
01:11:36,280 --> 01:11:40,040
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen conference paper presented at Autonomous Agents and

1253
01:11:40,120 --> 01:11:43,559
Speaker 1: Multi Agent Systems. And this one was really cool because

1254
01:11:43,560 --> 01:11:46,719
Speaker 1: it basically boiled down to having children observed two different

1255
01:11:46,800 --> 01:11:49,799
Speaker 1: virtual games of Werewolf, so they're not playing there's watching

1256
01:11:50,280 --> 01:11:52,639
Speaker 1: right there. I think they used the term imaginary friend,

1257
01:11:52,800 --> 01:11:54,960
Speaker 1: like you're you're not a player, but you're these are

1258
01:11:55,040 --> 01:11:58,479
Speaker 1: real people supposedly playing and you're observing their game. And

1259
01:11:58,479 --> 01:12:02,800
Speaker 1: they use the version A inversion B have slightly different rules,

1260
01:12:02,880 --> 01:12:07,960
Speaker 1: so one version seems far more unfair, and so basically

1261
01:12:08,040 --> 01:12:10,720
Speaker 1: they were using the game is a way to to

1262
01:12:10,880 --> 01:12:15,839
Speaker 1: just look at cultural sensitivity or insensitivity and attempting to

1263
01:12:15,840 --> 01:12:19,280
Speaker 1: to model it. Uh, it's it's interesting though they said

1264
01:12:19,320 --> 01:12:21,800
Speaker 1: that it didn't work out all that well. The exercise

1265
01:12:21,840 --> 01:12:25,439
Speaker 1: actually caused the children to reinforce their view that the

1266
01:12:25,560 --> 01:12:28,240
Speaker 1: end group is correct and that the outgroup is incorrect,

1267
01:12:28,320 --> 01:12:30,840
Speaker 1: rather than seeing that there are different ways to go

1268
01:12:30,920 --> 01:12:33,479
Speaker 1: about it, different ways to play the game. I feel

1269
01:12:33,479 --> 01:12:37,040
Speaker 1: like that is a common dynamic I've come across multiple times,

1270
01:12:37,120 --> 01:12:41,639
Speaker 1: is that studies find some attempts to discourage toxic social

1271
01:12:41,680 --> 01:12:45,080
Speaker 1: cognition can often seem to reinforce it. It seems like

1272
01:12:45,120 --> 01:12:48,360
Speaker 1: something you've come across before. Yeah. Yeah, And of course

1273
01:12:48,400 --> 01:12:50,560
Speaker 1: it brings us back to Werewolf, because what is Werewolf

1274
01:12:50,680 --> 01:12:55,080
Speaker 1: but a game that looks at at at toxic social interactions.

1275
01:12:56,120 --> 01:12:57,840
Speaker 1: It's the only game where you get to have a

1276
01:12:58,439 --> 01:13:01,800
Speaker 1: vigilante mob that kills some bud every single day. That's right,

1277
01:13:03,720 --> 01:13:06,160
Speaker 1: all right, So there you have it now. Obviously, we

1278
01:13:06,160 --> 01:13:09,160
Speaker 1: would love to hear from everyone out there. Uh. Certainly

1279
01:13:09,160 --> 01:13:11,360
Speaker 1: newcomers to the game of Werewolf. If you listen to

1280
01:13:11,400 --> 01:13:13,240
Speaker 1: this episode and then you go out and try it

1281
01:13:13,280 --> 01:13:16,639
Speaker 1: for yourself, we would love for you to report back. However,

1282
01:13:16,720 --> 01:13:19,080
Speaker 1: if you've been playing this game for for years and

1283
01:13:19,160 --> 01:13:22,920
Speaker 1: years now, we obviously want to hear about about your

1284
01:13:22,920 --> 01:13:27,000
Speaker 1: favorite additional rules and maybe some even homebrew rules that

1285
01:13:27,000 --> 01:13:29,400
Speaker 1: you've come up with. Let us know about it. Give

1286
01:13:29,479 --> 01:13:32,720
Speaker 1: us your Werewolf tails or your mafia tales and uh

1287
01:13:32,800 --> 01:13:34,880
Speaker 1: and and and we'll chat with you about them. Here's

1288
01:13:34,880 --> 01:13:36,920
Speaker 1: what I want to hear. If you already have a

1289
01:13:36,960 --> 01:13:40,120
Speaker 1: Werewolf group that plays regularly, if you can find out

1290
01:13:40,120 --> 01:13:43,479
Speaker 1: a way to incorporate a RoboCop character class in a

1291
01:13:43,520 --> 01:13:46,759
Speaker 1: way that doesn't break the game and heightens the tension

1292
01:13:46,800 --> 01:13:49,280
Speaker 1: and makes it even more fun, right in, tell us

1293
01:13:49,280 --> 01:13:52,080
Speaker 1: about it, and we we guarantee we will read that

1294
01:13:52,160 --> 01:13:54,840
Speaker 1: on the air. All right, Hey, head on over to

1295
01:13:54,840 --> 01:13:57,000
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That is where

1296
01:13:57,000 --> 01:14:00,160
Speaker 1: you will find the landing page for this episode. We'll

1297
01:14:00,160 --> 01:14:02,960
Speaker 1: find all the past episodes, and you'll find links out

1298
01:14:03,000 --> 01:14:05,920
Speaker 1: to our various social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler,

1299
01:14:06,160 --> 01:14:09,200
Speaker 1: and Instagram. And hey over on Facebook, that's where we

1300
01:14:09,240 --> 01:14:12,479
Speaker 1: have a group, the Facebook group Stuffed Toboll Your Mind

1301
01:14:12,479 --> 01:14:15,240
Speaker 1: Discussion module. Hop in there. That's a great place to

1302
01:14:15,280 --> 01:14:19,559
Speaker 1: have longer form discussions with other listeners and with the hosts.

1303
01:14:19,840 --> 01:14:21,280
Speaker 1: And if you want to get in touch with us

1304
01:14:21,280 --> 01:14:25,519
Speaker 1: directly as always the old fashioned way, the version that

1305
01:14:25,600 --> 01:14:28,280
Speaker 1: might be used by some medieval villagers conferring about how

1306
01:14:28,320 --> 01:14:30,839
Speaker 1: to kill a werewolf in their midst. You can email

1307
01:14:30,960 --> 01:14:34,120
Speaker 1: us at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot

1308
01:14:34,160 --> 01:14:46,799
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

1309
01:14:46,960 --> 01:15:03,960
Speaker 1: Does it how stuff works dot com? But I thought

1310
01:15:10,200 --> 01:15:12,920
Speaker 1: he im