WEBVTT - A Game of Werewolf 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:05.680 Night falls, werewolves, open your eyes and say hello to 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:11.120 the pack. You're hungry, aren't you? In silent formation, you 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:15.520 prowl between the farm houses. You smell some warm human blood. 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:20.400 The pack gathers in the churchyard to confer which of 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:29.960 the sleeping villagers smells the most delicious to you tonight? Oh? Really? Him? 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:34.479 All right? Stagger back to your homes, wash the blood 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:40.479 from your muzzles, and go to sleep. Daybreaks, everyone wakes up. 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:44.320 There's a sound coming from the town square. The constable's 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:53.120 bell is ringing. Something terrible has happened. Welcome to Stuff 0:00:53.159 --> 0:01:02.080 to Blow your Mind from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:04.319 welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:07.640 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And during that introduction 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:11.640 you were either going omg, omg, omg, or you were like, 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:15.080 what the heck is going on? That's right, uh, for 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:17.039 those of you who don't know what the heck is 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:21.160 going on, we were referring to the game of Werewolf, 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:24.160 sometimes known as Mafia. Right, I came to know this 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.120 game as Mafia. Did you did you do Mafia first? 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:29.559 Or Werewolf? Werewolf first? And that's one of the reasons. 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:33.720 I'm a werewolf purist on the game, and I've looked 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:37.000 down upon those who play it with a Mafia theme. 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:39.160 Now we will explain the rules to the game if 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:40.880 you don't know what they are in just a minute. 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:44.319 But so I came to know this game first as Mafia, 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:46.759 and I played it when I was in high school. 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:48.320 I played it with a bunch of friends of mine 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:51.600 down in their basement, and we would play for hours 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:53.960 at a time. It could just go on and on 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:57.840 and on, and we'd introduce all these ridiculous variations, because, 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:00.200 as you'll learn, once you know the basic rule of 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:02.760 this game, it can take on any kind of textural 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:05.520 overlay you want. It can be about werewolves, it can 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:08.480 be about Mafia, or as we did when I was 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.720 in high school, it can be about elves and orcs. 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:14.680 And so every time a character dies, I guess they 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:18.000 wouldn't die that the moderator would say, depart to Valan 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:21.800 or oh that's that's good. Yeah. So basically, it's a 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:25.360 social deception or a social deduction party game, depending on 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.239 how you look at it, in which an informed minority, 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:32.960 in this case, where wolves attempt to overcome an uninformed majority, 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.519 such as medieval villagers you know, or vice versa, depending 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:40.040 on which team you're you're playing on. Uh. But yeah, 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:44.880 it is a deceptively easy game to learn. I found 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:47.960 that just about anybody can get into it, even if 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:51.520 you're not a gaming person, because you'll frequently I'll frequently 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:55.400 find myself at a at a a gathering and not 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.160 everybody will be a board game geek. There'll be some 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.320 board game geeks there, but hard to bring everybody together 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:03.320 on what to play. This is one of those games 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:05.320 that brings people together. Well. Right, if you're at a 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:08.280 party and you say, hey, let's break out the D twenties, 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:10.800 it's time to play Dungeons and Dragons, a lot of 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:13.440 people are not not just going to be weirded out 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:16.560 by the geekiness of it, but they're also going to be, like, 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:19.440 all these rules, I gotta learn how to play. It's 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:21.960 really for some people they just don't want to be 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:24.720 bothered with all of the minutia of how to play 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:26.960 the game and what the hit points are and everything. 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.800 Were Wolf is like a version of D and D 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:34.160 that takes away almost every single rule and strips it 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:37.560 down to just pure role playing and basically the only 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:42.840 dynamics in the game are accusation and lying and killing. Yeah, 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:44.920 and and you don't need to you don't need a board. 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:46.920 You don't need to buy a copy of the game, 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.960 though there are some nice print versions of the game available. 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:52.480 But basically, all you need or just some index cards 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:55.800 or scraps of paper and a willingness to either draw 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:58.160 a werewolf and some villagers on them or just throw 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:01.280 some ws and v's and hand out the scraps. Robert, 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.480 you have made me this morning an amazing collection of 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:08.800 Werewolf game player cards on I believe how stuff works 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:12.120 branded envelopes. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, because you can 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:14.560 really use anything and you can just throw them together 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:16.720 at the drop of a hat. So it works well. 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:19.080 If you're with people at a cabin or something, or 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:21.279 even in a hotel room, you can grab that that 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:26.640 Howard Johnson notepad and the Howard Johnson pen and pages 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:29.200 of the Gideon Bible. Yeah, if you want to go 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.200 sacrilegious on it. Um and you might have to tweak 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:35.000 the the fluff there a little bit for it. But 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:37.000 but but yeah, this is this game is just a 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:39.799 wonderful balance of to put it in those gaming terms 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:43.599 simplistic mechanics, but the deep mechanics once you start playing 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:46.159 with it, and and and then entertaining fluff. Yeah, and 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:50.120 they will eventually prove scientifically and technologically relevant, which is 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:53.600 the interesting thing and what justifies this foray into the 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.400 land of the Werewolves today. But I think for those 0:04:57.480 --> 0:04:59.480 people out there who have never played the game and 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.080 are silk on what what's going on, we should describe 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:04.440 the rules, right, And hey, I just wanted to let 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.479 you know we played a few rounds of were a 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:09.960 Wolf with our co workers here in the opposite how 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:12.560 Steph works, and so we may play a few clips 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.000 for you from those games. And I wanted to give 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.000 a shout out to our co workers Alex, Lauren tar 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.120 Ramsey and Sarah for being really great sports and for 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:23.839 killing us again and again. Yeah, they really got into it. 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:26.200 We had to, We had to remove a fair amount 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:29.840 of cursing, but it was worth it. So at the 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:31.800 beginning of the game, you gathered together a bunch of 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:36.279 players and every player is randomly assigned a card telling 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:39.240 them their role. So for most players, you're going to 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:44.080 be a villager for a select minority in a group 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:50.279 of say eight, your select minority might be like two, 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:54.760 and those players are going to be werewolves. Then the 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:58.440 game proceeds into two phases that repeat back and forth, 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:01.760 night and day, day and night. Now a game master 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:04.880 runs the game and informs everyone when to close their eyes, 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:07.280 when to open their eyes. So you would say something like, 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:11.760 al right, villagers, nightfalls and your sleepy medieval town. Everyone 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:16.120 closes their eyes except for the werewolves. Werewolves, open your 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:20.120 eyes and indicate who shall die tonight. So the werewolves 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:24.040 silently confer. They usually with some kind of eye contact 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:26.880 or pointing game, and they figure out who they want 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.880 to devour or I don't know, just disembowel and leave 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:31.600 in the middle of the town. Yeah. I mean, that's 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.320 the delightful thing about about being the game masters. You 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:36.960 get to throw in details about how they're torn apart. 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:44.760 All right, the sun comes up, but not for you, 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:50.800 horse trainer. He was eating right down to the boots 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:56.320 and I didn't even get a chance. It's a little 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:58.560 less pressure now that I'm dead trying to lead the body. 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:06.600 I need some supplies. Robert, what's your favorite terror parts story? Oh, generally, 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:08.920 I just have like a portion of the individuals left 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:11.800 behind because I like the idea that the werewolves are 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:14.760 becoming so confident that they don't even have to eat everything, 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:17.520 and they would just they're just as happy to spread 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:20.760 terror throughout the town as anything else. I'm still so 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:25.960 full from that policeman last night. All right, So night 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.040 eventually comes to an end. That phase ends how the 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:32.679 villagers wake up, they find out who has been eaten 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.400 or torn apart in the night, and then they have 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:39.880 to dish out their own medieval mob justice. Right, So 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:42.200 the dead villager who has been chosen by the werewolves 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.280 is removed from the game, and I would say, for 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:48.120 total purity, I think that villager should not only be 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:50.840 removed from play and can't make any comments, but should 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.320 be banished from the room where everyone is playing, or 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:56.240 at least into the corner there's got to be some steaks. 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.760 Well I but then you have somebody who gets eliminated 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:02.480 right away, and well what I usually say is, look, 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:06.120 you're a ghost now, and you can't talk. You can observe, 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:08.320 but you can't talk. And it's always amusing when the 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:12.080 biggest chatter box in the room is reduced to a ghost. 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:14.880 You're you're the grandpa and the cloud in the family circus. 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:19.360 But yeah, so, like like you said, day comes around 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:23.840 and the villagers have to essentially form a mob to 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:26.800 find the killer and take care of them. And now, 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:30.080 since these are werewolves, they're very powerful at night. You 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:32.280 can't stop them at night when the full moon is out. 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:35.280 But during the daytime, they're just regular humans and you 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:37.559 can take them to the gallows if you are pretty 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:41.439 convinced that they're guilty. But how convinced are you? That's right? 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:43.600 So it comes down to a lot of a lot 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:49.200 of blind accusations, a lot of you know, self interested accusations. 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.359 And the cool part two is that you have werewolves 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:56.520 in there trying to uphold their cover as a human, 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.280 and they're going to make a case to probably for 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:01.600 a non wolf because because they know who the other 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:05.600 werewolf or well werewolves are, ye, why would they accuse 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:08.440 one of their own. So if you're Alice the werewolf, 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.360 you don't want to accuse Jeff the werewolf. You want 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.800 to accuse Rodney the villager of being a werewolf, right, 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:18.360 or jump on someone else's suspicion, uh, and then start 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:22.200 encouraging that anything to cast the suspicion away from you, 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:24.880 and at the end of all of this, there'll be 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:27.880 some sort of a vote. The villagers will decide who's 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:31.760 going to be executed for the crime of lokanthropy and 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:34.520 then only then and I think rules may vary on this, 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:36.720 but the way we play it is that at this 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:39.880 point they can perform an autopsy and they find out 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:42.600 if that was indeed a werewolf. Okay, So in some 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.040 versions of the game, you don't find out. You don't 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:47.920 know whether you just executed an innocent villager or a 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:50.760 werewolf until the end of the game, when it's finally 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:54.160 revealed who was who. Ah. That sounds rewarding as well, 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:56.840 because on one hand, with the with the autopsy, it 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:58.839 gives the person a chance to see like, I told 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.440 you so, I told you I wasn't werewolf, right, But 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:04.200 on the other hand, I do you're a ghost and 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:06.439 you can't comment right? Well that I like to think 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:08.640 that's their last thing they get to shout before they 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:12.480 drift into the nether realm. Nice. Okay, So you've got 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:15.720 this day night cycle where somebody, some player dies and 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:18.400 gets removed from the game every day and every night, 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:21.680 and the cycle continues until the end of the game. 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:23.560 So what brings about the end of the game. Well, 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:27.439 you can tell which team wins if suddenly the werewolves 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:30.680 out number the humans, right, or in some versions, I 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:32.920 think if they equal the number of humans. Well, right, 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:34.800 I mean, if you've got the same number of werewolves 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:38.079 and villagers. Yeah, and the villagers don't stay much of 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:40.680 a chance. Yeah, and then it's just werewolves slaughtering humans 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:43.560 in broad daylight. Welcome to Werewolf City. Yes. Now, of 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:46.920 course the regular villagers win once they eliminate all of 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.720 the werewolves in their midst and the moderator can announce 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:52.040 to them You've gotten the last one. Your village is 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:55.600 safe for now until the next game starts, which is 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.920 probably in about five minutes. Now, that's the basic game 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:01.920 of Werewolf form. Fia Mafia is exactly the same, except 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:05.360 instead of werewolves, their mafia members, the same rules, everything is. 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:08.440 It's just different texture, yeah, different fluff, which I have 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:11.960 to reiterate that I think werewolves are tremendously more fun 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.440 because I don't really like I don't like playing my 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:19.320 my cool parlor game with murderous criminals. I like the 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:23.199 idea of the fantastic Werewolf's gotta be monsters. Yeah, okay, 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.679 so there are a million different ways you can throw 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:29.480 some spice into this game, right, People play this game 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:33.960 with all different kinds of crazy invented third party characters, 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.079 so it's not necessarily just villagers and werewolves. What if 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:40.160 you add in Robert, give me, give me another player class? 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:42.480 The one I love the most is the sear. Okay, 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:45.000 how does that work? The seer has a separate phase 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:47.480 in the night. So there's the phase where the werewolves 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:50.160 get to open their eyes and pick out who's gonna 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:51.960 die and then close their eyes. But then you have 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.280 another phase where the sea or opens their eyes and 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:58.240 they get to point to one person and the game 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:00.280 master will give them a thumbs up or at comes 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:04.240 down about there the presence of lecanthropy, So this gives 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:08.600 one villager the chance to have secret knowledge. Generally, it's 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:10.160 you know, the odds are gonna play out that it's 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:12.719 probably gonna be about who is not a werewolf as 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.480 opposed to who is a werewolf? But then they have 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:17.800 to be careful about tipping their hand and the argument 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:21.760 so that that follow exactly. So you say, uh, day 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:23.959 comes around and you say, well, I know Jeff is 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:26.360 a werewolf because I'm the Seer and I got the 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:28.760 thumbs up on him last night. Guess who's going to 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:31.959 die tonight? Obviously the person who's revealed themselves as the 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:37.120 Seer right now. There are other variations on the privileged 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:41.240 Knowledge character. There is a for instance, the Innocent Child, 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:44.640 and this is when I tend to not use. But 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:48.800 this one involves one player who gets to peak during 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:51.560 the night, so it's risky. So instead of having a 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:54.280 separate phase in the night where you can ask the moderator, 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:57.079 you have the option if you choose to open your 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:01.000 eyes while the werewolves are conferring, right, and this gives, 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:04.280 of course the werewolves a chance to actually spot you spying. 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:08.160 So it adds this extra extra level to the play. 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:10.560 I guess now. One way I know I have played 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:12.720 is with a character that would be a doctor, or 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:16.480 maybe maybe even better would be the apothecary. Well, this 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:19.120 is kind of like the Seer, but instead of asking 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:23.360 the moderator every night, the doctor can choose one person 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:27.560 to make immune. So say the apothecary, can they wake 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:29.480 up at a different phase in the night and they 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.240 give a potion to someone and if that is the 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:36.120 same person that the werewolves have selected. That person, that 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.520 person gets saved by the potion. The werewolf attack does 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:43.040 not succeed. Oh that's nice. There's one that we sometimes 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:46.480 use called the Hunter, where they get to take somebody 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.280 down with them if they die, which adds some sort 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:53.720 of like shootout mentality to the proceedings. Another one, I 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:55.680 don't man if that happens early in the game, the 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:59.360 Hunter probably is going to be randomly getting another villager, right, yeah, 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:00.880 I mean that's what of the problems with a real 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:04.200 you know, itchy crossbow finger, you know. So tell me 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:06.840 about the Cupid, Robert, Oh, the Cupid is one of 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:11.040 my favorites. So this is just a villager basically, but 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:13.560 they get a phase at the very beginning of the 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.040 game where they get to secretly pick two players to 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:20.000 be star crossed lovers. So if one dies and they 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:22.480 could be they could be a human villager or they 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:25.360 could be a werewolf, you know, in masquerading as a villager. 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:29.280 But if the other lover dies, their character throws themselves 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.400 off a bridge. Love knows no boundaries monster them. Yeah, 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:34.120 and it's so this one also adds that sort of 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:37.680 crossfire dynamics of whoa, this happened and then something else 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:41.320 happened as well. Now you can imagine that the strategy 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:45.680 in this game. This game is odd because at one level, 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:47.960 it seems like when you start the game, you're just 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.000 going to be making these totally random accusations. I mean, 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:52.720 what do you have to go on? Maybe you thought 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.520 you heard somebody next to you opening their eyes. I 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:57.480 mean it's hard. It's hard to have anything to go 0:14:57.520 --> 0:14:59.000 on at the beginning of the game other than just 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:03.400 mere suspicion. But strategy I do think tends to come 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.680 in more as the game goes on. Yeah, that first 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:09.680 phase of play, I think they're in my experience, there 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:12.360 are basically two elements that are gonna work. Unless somebody 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.920 really does creak their chair and make a very audible 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:19.640 sign that that clues and everyone else. You're gonna have 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:24.880 existing uh social dynamics coming into play. So like two 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:26.880 friends who kind of pick each other at each other 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:30.040 a lot um, they're likely to accuse each other of 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:34.440 being awarewolf just because other factors. Uh. If an individual 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.400 in the group has a large beard, I found, they're 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:41.080 likely to to draw the uh you know, the fun 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:44.120 suspicion of everyone else because there's nothing else to go on. 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:47.320 What if they've just got dark dried blood on their lips, 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:50.640 that'll do it too. Now another thing that comes into 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:53.760 play so is this when when I play it. When 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.800 I am the gamemaster for a game Awarewolf, I generally 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:59.760 ask everyone to choose a role in the village. This 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:02.640 is not a game mechanics role, but just a fluff roll. 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:05.440 So you're just a villager, but you get to I'm 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:07.520 the dairy farm Yeah, you get to be the dairy farmer. 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:10.360 Or you're the you know, you're the town fool, you're 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:14.200 the you work at the winery, you're a monk, etcetera. 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:16.760 It just gives it an extra level of role playing fun. 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:20.440 What do you what do you all do here? What 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:25.960 are you up doing? The demokratic Republic of I'm a tailor, 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:30.800 but I'm real bad at it. I'm the I'm the 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:35.480 leacher in the town. I hear that help you prevent 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.720 pantherpy Yeah? Okay, useful? Useful. A lot of industries sprung 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:46.000 up around this whole werewolf thing. Try since I build coffins, coffins, lechers, 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:50.120 terrible tailors, what do you do on the town want 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:55.480 of you werewolves? Yeah, I'm the werewolf groupiece. I don't 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:57.280 really have a job. I just like go from North 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:01.800 Catatonia to South Catatonia and I'm just like, look at 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:05.440 the werewolf remains. So you would not be wanting to 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:08.800 kill a werewolf or put one on trial or is 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:13.480 that your thing? Yes? I leave it there. The werewolf 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:15.960 traumas has really had an effect in the populary. Yeah, 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:24.879 I see that, all right. I'm a warlock. Warlock, Okay, 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:28.879 do you need any fancy ropes? I can make them uncomfortable. 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:31.680 I need you to come by my place at three 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:41.800 to do another werewolf protection spelled werewolves. Midwife an the 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:46.919 only person do anything. Nobody in this village makes food. No, no, 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:49.400 So we've got a warlock, we've got a midwife, we've 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:53.040 got a groupie, we've got a terrible tailor, we've got 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:57.639 a coffin maker, and we've got a bleacher. Yeah. And 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:00.359 there's just a voice that tells you things that happen, 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:05.560 Like right now is the sun sets mazy sky and 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:10.640 the babbling group comes up. If there are two were 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:18.760 most among us, let me see your eyes. But this 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:23.240 can also give people ammunition for making blind accusations in 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:27.120 the opening phase. Okay, so sometimes the accusations wouldn't be 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.439 truly strategic just in terms of winning the game, but 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:33.400 they might be playing along with some you know, not 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.400 actually strategic elements that are just part of the fluff. 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:40.399 So it's this weird mix of rationality and irrationality in 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:43.280 the game play. Yeah, yeah, I would say so. But 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:46.680 in terms of player classes, classes that have mechanics attached 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:49.399 to them, the list just goes on and on. There 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:52.639 there are tons of fun classes to play with. Some 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.359 of them, you know, they kind of break the game, uh, 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:57.119 and you decide, well, we're not going to have that 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:02.600 one again. Other ones introduce new mccans, new dynamics that 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:05.199 they can just keep you playing Werewolf into the wee hours. 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:07.239 Here's the one I would go with. Tell me if 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:10.159 you think this would break the game. The RoboCop. So 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:13.920 the village has one RoboCop that each night can administer 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:18.359 harsh justice just to a random individual. Or how does it? 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.600 How does the RoboCop decide? I guess the robocops following 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:24.720 something you a list of orders. Well, it's by the 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:27.600 rubric of serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:31.000 uphold the law, and then maybe a secret fourth category 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:34.479 of course we don't know. Well, hey, hey Robert, Okay, 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:38.159 so here's the thing. We've just described. This weird game 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:41.280 about killing your friends and then accusing your friends and 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.840 then killing more of your friends. Why is this so popular? 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.119 I I've had the experience that whenever you introduced this 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:51.359 to a group of people, especially if they haven't played before, 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:56.000 they get ravenous for the game and they're they're like, yeah, yeah, 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:58.480 we gotta play more. Let's let's keep going. Yeah, it's 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:01.480 so very addictive, and and I think the the appeal 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:04.280 of the game does come down to a few key reasons. 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.440 So some of these we've already touched on. But first 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:10.440 of all, there's a very low learning curve. Virtually anyone 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:13.359 can play. Don't have dn D rules, it's just you 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:17.080 can learn it in five minutes. And also, again, while 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:19.280 you can brought by some pretty cool print versions of 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:22.280 the game, everything you need is easily printed out or 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:25.119 just scribbled on index cars and you're good to go again. 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:29.679 Howard Johnson, Stationary and pen and you're playing Werewolf. And 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:31.760 then there's this if anyone out there has ever played 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:35.080 rock band or guitar hero at a social gathering. You 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:37.120 know how that can just sort of treat was popular 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:39.679 for a while. It was, and I always noticed how 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:42.680 it just turned the room into this is this zombified 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:46.280 state where people aren't really interacting socially with each other. 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:49.800 They're only interacting with each other in this this soulless 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:54.160 presentation on the screen. It's like what was imagined by 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:58.359 the bad guys in the movie video Drone exactly. Yeah, Werewolf. 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:00.919 On the other hand, it actually in Courage is social 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:04.359 interaction among the players as well as varying degrees of 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:07.560 role playing depending on you know, how comfortable the group 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:09.960 is with that. But that will that will come out 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:13.480 organically as you play. And then, like a lot of 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:17.240 great games, it's deceptively complex, easy to learn, but full 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:20.480 of new twists and challenges as the players adapt and 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:23.280 as new optional rules are introduced, So you learn to 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:26.000 lie better and you get better at spotting the lies 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:28.280 of others, and if as you're doing a lot of 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:30.360 back and forth role playing as well, it just gives 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.199 you more and more ammunition. Now I know. There was 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.240 one interesting article about this game that was published in 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:39.080 two thousand ten and Wired that we both read, and 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:40.919 one of the things that it points out is that 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:45.000 this game is tremendously popular among people who work in 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.199 the tech business. That's a kind of odd thing to note, Like, 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:50.600 why do you think that is? Yeah, this was an 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:54.240 interesting article. They talked to Frank Lance, director of the 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:58.280 New York University Game Center, and he pointed out that 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:02.800 the game sanctions a lot of a titilating social activity. 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:08.639 So we're you know, we're talking stuff like flirtation, confrontation, betrayal, 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:12.280 meaning that it's not only great for extroverts because obviously 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:15.440 a bunch of extroverted theater majors are going to jump 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:17.040 in and have a lot of fun with this, but 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:21.880 introverts as well. Uh, it's instantly have license to engage 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:24.600 in all of this fun social interactions. Yeah, stuff that 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:27.440 you might normally be very intimidated to do in real 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:30.440 life is sanctioned within the game. So there's a lot 0:22:30.440 --> 0:22:34.120 of direct eye contact and accusing people and being yeah, 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:37.800 like you said, just being very confrontational. It's appealing to 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:40.639 do that in a controlled setting for people who don't 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:43.280 feel much permission to do that in the rest of 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:46.879 their lives, right. So so Frankie pointed out that this 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:50.480 obviously ended up appealing to more introverted members of the 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:54.040 tech industry. However, there's a c net article from the 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:56.920 two thousand nine that pointed out that that the game 0:22:56.960 --> 0:22:59.320 was also a hit with more of the corporate types 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:03.080 as well, because sure, you're you're not pitching an idea 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:05.399 to a room full of investors, but you are a 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:09.160 secret werewolf trying to shift blame onto an innocent human. 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:12.000 And that's basic CEO of material, right, That's like what 0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:14.800 they teach in business school. Or you're a seer or 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:17.440 a child with secret inside or info when you're trying 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:21.760 to make a purely logical case without revealing your privileged status, 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:24.880 so the level of social interaction can be seen. It's 0:23:24.920 --> 0:23:29.480 practice for actual villainy, or or just this fun exercise 0:23:29.520 --> 0:23:32.480 that lets you, uh, you know, move social muscles that 0:23:32.480 --> 0:23:35.080 don't get a lot of exercise otherwise. I can't wait 0:23:35.119 --> 0:23:37.600 to get all the CEO hate mail and it's gonna 0:23:37.600 --> 0:23:40.239 be great and like Mark Zuckerberg's right, and then you 0:23:40.240 --> 0:23:45.320 guys are totally biased ps not a werewolf. Okay, So 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:48.960 I've got a theory about why the game is so appealing, 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:54.720 And I think it's that it mirrors and simultaneously simplifies 0:23:55.320 --> 0:24:00.280 so many high stakes, real life decision dilemmas because cause 0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:02.679 the dynamics sort of like you just mentioned with with 0:24:02.720 --> 0:24:04.919 the idea of this business. You know, you've got some 0:24:04.960 --> 0:24:08.760 bisbro who is a secret werewolf and trying to pull 0:24:08.840 --> 0:24:11.199 one over on the people who are being disadvantaged by 0:24:11.240 --> 0:24:16.520 what he's doing. The dynamic of the informed minority versus 0:24:16.560 --> 0:24:20.600 the uninformed majority is so common in the real world. Basically, 0:24:21.080 --> 0:24:23.080 this is a description of what is meant by the 0:24:23.080 --> 0:24:26.600 word conspiracy. Oh yeah, it's a werewolf conspiracy. Now, the 0:24:26.640 --> 0:24:28.800 concept of a conspiracy, I think gets a bad rap 0:24:28.840 --> 0:24:32.240 because it gets associated with the more wild versions like 0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:37.480 conspiracy theories tends to mean people who think interdimensional Sasquatches 0:24:37.520 --> 0:24:41.240 did nine eleven. But but there's no doubt that under 0:24:41.280 --> 0:24:45.320 the broad definition, conspiracies exist all around us. Like any gang, 0:24:45.880 --> 0:24:50.240 any criminal gang is a conspiracy. Every network of corrupt 0:24:50.280 --> 0:24:53.600 politicians and people who buy favors from them, that's a conspiracy. 0:24:53.640 --> 0:24:56.639 It's an informed minority trying to get advantage over an 0:24:56.720 --> 0:25:01.199 uninformed majority. Unethical company is of course as we mentioned 0:25:01.200 --> 0:25:04.320 could be described as conspiracies, and in every case there's 0:25:04.320 --> 0:25:08.280 this small group working against the interests of the larger group, 0:25:08.320 --> 0:25:12.320 trying to keep their behavior secret and avoid accountability. Meanwhile, 0:25:12.359 --> 0:25:14.480 the larger group is trying to root out all the 0:25:14.520 --> 0:25:17.360 people who are working in secret against them. And it's 0:25:17.520 --> 0:25:20.719 entirely possible in all these real world scenarios that this 0:25:20.760 --> 0:25:24.399 will lead to innocent people getting blamed and unfairly punished. 0:25:24.920 --> 0:25:27.520 And so Where Wolf is cool because it reduces these 0:25:27.560 --> 0:25:31.840 most vexing problems in human civilization to this simple party game. 0:25:31.920 --> 0:25:35.159 This really distilled dynamic and one of the one of 0:25:35.200 --> 0:25:37.399 the cool and appealing things about Where Wolf is that 0:25:37.480 --> 0:25:40.040 at the end of the game, you always get to 0:25:40.080 --> 0:25:43.840 find out what actually happened, right, even if you lose, 0:25:44.160 --> 0:25:47.600 there's resolution to the mystery. You know, in our constant 0:25:47.600 --> 0:25:52.520 prosecution of the various mundane conspiracies in real life, time 0:25:52.560 --> 0:25:54.720 after time we find that we can't be certain what 0:25:54.800 --> 0:25:56.919 really happened. You know, the bad guy gets away with 0:25:56.920 --> 0:25:58.879 it and you never find out what they did or 0:25:58.920 --> 0:26:02.000 who they were, or you prosecute somebody and they claim 0:26:02.040 --> 0:26:04.120 innocence all the way to the gallows and you can 0:26:04.160 --> 0:26:07.040 never really be sure you did the right thing. The 0:26:07.080 --> 0:26:09.760 appeal of Werewolf, I think is you get to play 0:26:09.840 --> 0:26:13.600 this dangerous game that we're all constantly playing in real 0:26:13.720 --> 0:26:16.960 life in simulation, and you get to find out for 0:26:17.080 --> 0:26:20.600 sure how well you did at it. Alright, listeners, on 0:26:20.680 --> 0:26:22.879 that note, I'm gonna ask everyone to close their eyes 0:26:23.520 --> 0:26:27.119 as the commercial break session of play commences, and then 0:26:27.119 --> 0:26:29.119 when we come back, you may open your eyes and 0:26:29.160 --> 0:26:39.919 we will discuss the history of Mafia and Werewolf. The 0:26:39.960 --> 0:26:52.360 Warlock goes by the coffin shop three pm. Un He's 0:26:52.359 --> 0:26:55.160 got his uncomfortable robin that the terrible tailor has tailored 0:26:55.280 --> 0:27:01.160 for him terribly. The coffin acres nowhere to be seen, 0:27:01.800 --> 0:27:04.480 so while he's waiting, the Warlock is taking a tour 0:27:04.520 --> 0:27:08.359 of the facilities. Opens a little baby coffin with spider lamps, 0:27:08.720 --> 0:27:14.240 opens a medium sized coffin, empty satinliner. Opens the large 0:27:14.280 --> 0:27:21.719 sized coffin, and the coffin maker is within everything except 0:27:21.760 --> 0:27:32.960 for his face. The Apothecary, I shouldn't have. I don't 0:27:33.000 --> 0:27:35.600 have any direct dealings with her now. The apothecary has 0:27:35.680 --> 0:27:38.760 wanted to be a werewolf for a long long time, 0:27:40.880 --> 0:27:50.399 so maybe we should just kill her. Alright, open your eyes. 0:27:50.440 --> 0:27:53.280 The sun has risen. Now we've established that the clearly 0:27:53.320 --> 0:27:56.000 superior version of this game is the one with the 0:27:56.000 --> 0:27:59.760 werewolf fluff instead of the Mafia fluff. But we've got 0:27:59.760 --> 0:28:02.639 it it. It was Mafia before it was Werewolf. It 0:28:02.720 --> 0:28:06.280 was definitely Mafia before it was where Wolf. Invented by 0:28:06.320 --> 0:28:09.280 a guy named Dimitri david Off. And I've seen nineteen 0:28:09.320 --> 0:28:11.879 eighty six in nineteen eighties seven sided I think, I 0:28:11.880 --> 0:28:14.240 guess it was just around that period of eighty six 0:28:14.320 --> 0:28:17.439 eighty seven in Russia, right, Yeah, Yeah, he was a 0:28:17.480 --> 0:28:19.679 teacher in Russia, and I think this adds to that, 0:28:19.760 --> 0:28:24.160 maybe the appeal at the mafia uh motif, I don't know. Yeah, 0:28:24.160 --> 0:28:28.840 And he invented it as a psychological exercise for his students. Yeah, 0:28:28.880 --> 0:28:30.960 So he was a psychology student at the time and 0:28:31.000 --> 0:28:33.639 he was teaching high school. And he explains that he 0:28:33.720 --> 0:28:37.000 wanted to teach psychology concepts, but thought that this type 0:28:37.000 --> 0:28:39.440 of game might be better at teaching some of these 0:28:39.440 --> 0:28:42.400 psychology concepts, or at least more appealing to students. Then, 0:28:42.560 --> 0:28:45.200 I don't know, say a traditional lecture might be. I 0:28:45.200 --> 0:28:48.479 can certainly imagine why classes would have more fun playing 0:28:48.560 --> 0:28:51.280 Mafia than they would listening to you talk about the 0:28:51.360 --> 0:28:55.520 latest findings on the science of deception exactly now. Wired 0:28:55.760 --> 0:28:59.560 interviewed David Off in two thousand ten, and it's it's 0:28:59.560 --> 0:29:01.840 a fun article to look up directly, the same one 0:29:01.880 --> 0:29:04.320 we mentioned. I'll try to include a link to it 0:29:04.360 --> 0:29:07.200 on the landing page for this episode. He insisted on 0:29:07.280 --> 0:29:11.200 being interviewed by Wired within the m m O world 0:29:11.200 --> 0:29:15.000 of warcraft for starters. Dude, that's even better than saying 0:29:15.040 --> 0:29:18.440 I'll only do an interview in second life. Yeah, and 0:29:18.480 --> 0:29:21.480 he was. He was extremely dodgy with some of his answers, 0:29:21.520 --> 0:29:24.320 so the resulting interview piece spence most of its time 0:29:24.720 --> 0:29:29.080 placing him within the context of his Russian upbringing before 0:29:29.320 --> 0:29:32.440 moving to the United States. So he was born in 0:29:32.560 --> 0:29:36.560 comments Gurowski near the Kazakhstan border, and this was not 0:29:36.680 --> 0:29:40.120 too far from the nineteen fifty seven Uh kissed him 0:29:40.400 --> 0:29:44.520 nuclear disaster that your Noble explosion, which we've discussed on 0:29:44.560 --> 0:29:47.560 the show before, occurred in nineteen eighty six while he 0:29:47.720 --> 0:29:51.240 was designing Mafia. He was teaching high school at the time. 0:29:51.240 --> 0:29:53.600 As we discussed any tap of game to his students, 0:29:53.840 --> 0:29:56.440 And the crazy thing is it kind of just spreads 0:29:56.440 --> 0:29:58.880 out from there. Yeah, And one thing I love about 0:29:58.880 --> 0:30:02.000 this article is it to Stab Publish, is that he's 0:30:02.040 --> 0:30:05.240 about as weird as you would suspect from somebody who 0:30:05.280 --> 0:30:09.840 invented this weird social deception virus that infects people's parties 0:30:09.880 --> 0:30:13.880 all around the world. Now yeah, uh, Like, I know 0:30:13.920 --> 0:30:16.840 I already mentioned video Drome once today, but it makes 0:30:16.840 --> 0:30:19.160 me think, you know, a person who says I will 0:30:19.160 --> 0:30:22.520 only be interviewed within World of Warcraft is like Brian 0:30:22.600 --> 0:30:26.040 Oblivion and video Drome who will only be interviewed on 0:30:26.160 --> 0:30:29.960 television on a television. Oh man, there's so much potential 0:30:30.000 --> 0:30:34.280 to create a horror franchise about some sort of a 0:30:34.360 --> 0:30:38.560 social deception game like this that just spreads, and it 0:30:38.600 --> 0:30:41.240 spreads so easily based on just how addictive it is 0:30:41.280 --> 0:30:44.280 and the various benefits of play, as we've discussed already. 0:30:44.640 --> 0:30:47.560 But but the crazy thing too here is that this 0:30:47.600 --> 0:30:52.320 is largely a pre Internet age which is spreading, so 0:30:52.600 --> 0:30:58.560 it really doesn't start picking up online until after that's 0:30:58.560 --> 0:31:00.720 when it it hits the the u US according to 0:31:00.800 --> 0:31:03.920 accounts that that we were reading. And this is where 0:31:04.280 --> 0:31:09.960 Andrew Plotkin a k aesarf you might know, missarf Uh. 0:31:09.960 --> 0:31:11.720 He he's the one who picked it up in the 0:31:11.800 --> 0:31:15.120 US and updated it with the werewolf fluff and then 0:31:15.280 --> 0:31:19.959 began distributing it spreading the word of it online. So 0:31:20.000 --> 0:31:22.880 he told Wired magazine the following in two thousand and ten. 0:31:23.400 --> 0:31:25.760 I was fascinated with the game design. I had never 0:31:25.800 --> 0:31:29.120 seen a game with such a pure strategic underpinning, no 0:31:29.240 --> 0:31:32.680 mechanics to be strategic about. It was what poker would 0:31:32.720 --> 0:31:35.400 be if you didn't play with the deck of cards 0:31:35.440 --> 0:31:39.800 but bets solely on other people's bets. It shouldn't have worked, 0:31:40.040 --> 0:31:42.720 but it did. I think he's exactly right about that. 0:31:42.880 --> 0:31:45.840 Like it's it's kind of hard to understand what's so 0:31:45.960 --> 0:31:48.920 appealing about the game until you play it. And I 0:31:48.960 --> 0:31:51.400 wonder out there, if you're somebody who's never played this 0:31:51.440 --> 0:31:53.560 game before and you're listening and you don't get it, 0:31:53.920 --> 0:31:57.520 You're like, what is fun about this? It just sounds boring. 0:31:58.120 --> 0:32:01.320 You've got to try it. I suspect your mind will 0:32:01.320 --> 0:32:04.680 be changed, or maybe this is an occasion for more 0:32:04.720 --> 0:32:06.920 hate mail. And I should point out to that the 0:32:06.960 --> 0:32:10.360 game is is so simple that not only is it 0:32:10.400 --> 0:32:14.280 a popular physical parlor game like that where people physically 0:32:14.320 --> 0:32:17.080 gather into space and play with each other. It also 0:32:17.520 --> 0:32:20.960 is played a lot online in online communities because you 0:32:21.040 --> 0:32:22.720 don't have to have a spec. As long as you 0:32:22.760 --> 0:32:26.560 have a basic social interaction platform, like just a basic 0:32:26.640 --> 0:32:29.600 chat room, you can play a Werewolf. Yeah. You really 0:32:29.640 --> 0:32:32.320 don't need much much more, as long as you have 0:32:32.400 --> 0:32:36.960 some method of of randomizing the roles, which is a 0:32:37.000 --> 0:32:40.400 pretty simple programming feat. That's all you need. As long 0:32:40.400 --> 0:32:43.800 as you've got some kind of side messaging private messaging service. Yeah, 0:32:43.880 --> 0:32:45.520 you can do it now. Another thing I love about 0:32:45.520 --> 0:32:50.240 Werewolf is how closely it resembles a couple of key movies, 0:32:51.200 --> 0:32:53.720 that one one of which I know that you love 0:32:53.760 --> 0:32:56.400 as well. I know where you're going, but hit the 0:32:56.400 --> 0:33:00.360 first one first. Okay. So there's a nineteen four film 0:33:00.360 --> 0:33:05.360 titled The Beast Must Die. It stars Peter Cushing, a 0:33:05.520 --> 0:33:11.520 thirty four year old Michael Gambon Charles Gray seven. Yes, yes, 0:33:11.600 --> 0:33:15.960 he played Blowfield. He was Blowfeld and Diamonds Are Forever, 0:33:16.040 --> 0:33:18.800 that's right. Yeah, he played the Criminologist and Rocky Horror, 0:33:19.200 --> 0:33:22.800 and he also played microft homes on the Jeremy Brett 0:33:23.560 --> 0:33:27.800 Granada Sherlock series. I'm sure he was great at that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:33:27.920 --> 0:33:30.000 it was great and it was terrific and everything. He 0:33:30.200 --> 0:33:33.160 is dry as a bone, yes, man, this is a 0:33:33.280 --> 0:33:37.680 very dry British film, as one might expect, and it's 0:33:37.720 --> 0:33:39.520 a it's a werewolf Who've done it based in a 0:33:39.600 --> 0:33:44.000 large part on the Agatha Christie book and movies, um 0:33:44.200 --> 0:33:47.680 and then there were none. So the film climaxes with 0:33:47.760 --> 0:33:50.320 a scene in which everyone gathers in a parlor and 0:33:50.360 --> 0:33:53.880 they're tested with I think a silver candlestick. They pass 0:33:53.920 --> 0:33:58.160 it around to see who's a werewolf. And this is 0:33:58.200 --> 0:34:00.720 the only movie that I know of to feature a 0:34:00.760 --> 0:34:04.640 werewolf break. This is a brief intermission for the audience 0:34:04.680 --> 0:34:07.560 to discuss their theories on who the werewolf is and 0:34:07.640 --> 0:34:10.319 then vote on the werewolf before you get the big 0:34:10.400 --> 0:34:13.000 reveal in the movie. Now, the really great version of 0:34:13.040 --> 0:34:16.279 this would be that the audience vote determines which real 0:34:16.400 --> 0:34:19.319 they load into the projector and becomes the werewolf in 0:34:19.320 --> 0:34:22.719 the final scene. Yeah, I that was not the case, though. 0:34:22.800 --> 0:34:25.200 It was just a chance to discuss what you thought 0:34:25.239 --> 0:34:28.880 about about the movie up to that point. But I 0:34:28.880 --> 0:34:31.080 feel like we need more werewolf breaks in our films, 0:34:31.120 --> 0:34:34.280 even in non werewolf films. Say, for instance, you're watching 0:34:34.280 --> 0:34:37.080 Glen Gary Glen Ross the movie. Yeah, okay, there are 0:34:37.080 --> 0:34:39.000 no actual werewolves in it, but there I think that 0:34:39.120 --> 0:34:42.040 it's constructive to have a point where the audience talks 0:34:42.080 --> 0:34:44.319 about who might be a werewolf. Well, there's a there's 0:34:44.360 --> 0:34:47.719 a burglary scene, like you could say, pause to discuss film, 0:34:47.840 --> 0:34:52.200 and everyone pauses and goes into an extremely profanity lace 0:34:52.320 --> 0:34:56.680 discussion about who broke into the office and stole those leads. Now, 0:34:56.680 --> 0:34:58.960 another great scene that comes to mind that is very 0:34:58.960 --> 0:35:02.040 reminiscent of Werewolf is, of course, the scene in John 0:35:02.080 --> 0:35:06.160 Carpenter filmed The Thing. I love it. It's the best 0:35:06.160 --> 0:35:09.400 the scenes where you do you're doing the test to 0:35:09.440 --> 0:35:12.680 determine who's got thing blood and who's got human blood. 0:35:12.880 --> 0:35:15.160 That's right. If you've never seen The Thing, it's one 0:35:15.200 --> 0:35:18.279 of the best horror movies ever made, and it's it's 0:35:18.320 --> 0:35:20.840 got what's so great about it, apart from just the 0:35:20.960 --> 0:35:24.200 music and the cast and all that, is that it's 0:35:24.239 --> 0:35:27.360 got these scenes where they're trying to figure out who's 0:35:27.400 --> 0:35:29.920 the thing that's right and uh. And in the original 0:35:30.520 --> 0:35:33.600 John Carpenter adaptation and not the original film version of it, 0:35:33.640 --> 0:35:38.239 obviously Howard hawks. Yeah, And in Carpenter's version, they test 0:35:38.280 --> 0:35:42.919 everyone's blood sample one by one, sticking a heated piece 0:35:42.920 --> 0:35:45.560 of copper wire in there to see if the blood 0:35:45.560 --> 0:35:48.799 acts to defend itself, because the blood would act independent 0:35:48.920 --> 0:35:53.799 of the individual, because it's a crazy shape shifting organism, right, 0:35:53.920 --> 0:35:56.520 Each part is its own organism and the thing, right, 0:35:57.000 --> 0:35:59.799 And so that's the test in that version. However, in 0:35:59.840 --> 0:36:03.360 the two thousand eleven remake, which or it's kind of 0:36:03.360 --> 0:36:06.480 a remake, it's kind of a prequel. Uh I thought 0:36:06.520 --> 0:36:08.440 it was still fun. A lot of a lot of 0:36:08.440 --> 0:36:10.520 people kind of ragged on it, but they do an 0:36:10.560 --> 0:36:13.680 alternate version of the test and by checking to see 0:36:13.719 --> 0:36:17.800 who's who lacks amalgam dental feeling of fillings because the 0:36:18.239 --> 0:36:22.160 theory is that the thing can't form inorganic matter or 0:36:22.160 --> 0:36:24.680 can't replicate it on getting matter. What So if you 0:36:24.760 --> 0:36:29.240 practice good dental hygiene, they're just gonna burn you alive. Yeah, 0:36:29.360 --> 0:36:33.080 it's not as satisfying, but but it's still amusing. That's 0:36:33.160 --> 0:36:36.280 kind of my that's my general review of the film. Okay, 0:36:36.280 --> 0:36:37.759 So if you're still with us and you haven't just 0:36:37.800 --> 0:36:40.040 paused the podcast to go play We're Wolf with your friends. 0:36:40.040 --> 0:36:43.200 You're probably wondering, what is that stuff we referenced earlier 0:36:43.280 --> 0:36:47.120 about We're Wolf showing up in academic literature. Well, We're 0:36:47.160 --> 0:36:50.600 Wolf is an interesting game from several standpoints, and one 0:36:50.640 --> 0:36:54.719 of those standpoints in in academic research would be game theory, right, 0:36:55.040 --> 0:36:57.040 that's right, Yeah, I mean in general, do you see 0:36:57.040 --> 0:37:00.840 it popping up in a lot of different academic papers, 0:37:00.880 --> 0:37:04.839 A lot of different psychological studies, even AI studies as 0:37:04.880 --> 0:37:07.680 well discussed, and a lot of it just comes down 0:37:07.680 --> 0:37:09.319 to the fact that this is a simple game that 0:37:09.360 --> 0:37:12.920 depends heavily on deception and also social inter interaction and 0:37:12.960 --> 0:37:16.560 observational skills good things to model in computers if you 0:37:16.560 --> 0:37:20.919 are very sinister and is David Off himself points out, 0:37:21.080 --> 0:37:23.279 it's not a game you can master. So yeah, you 0:37:23.280 --> 0:37:25.400 can do a certain amount of math in your heads 0:37:25.400 --> 0:37:28.120 sort of card counting, I guess, but it's only going 0:37:28.160 --> 0:37:31.080 to get you so far, and it's ultimately difficult to 0:37:31.080 --> 0:37:34.160 predict who is going to win. Uh, you know, werewolves 0:37:34.200 --> 0:37:37.080 are humans, which is this is This is another wonderful 0:37:37.080 --> 0:37:40.719 thing about it and another reason why gaming can go 0:37:40.800 --> 0:37:42.840 on till one or two in the morning, because you 0:37:42.880 --> 0:37:46.080 don't reach that point where everyone's figured it out and 0:37:46.120 --> 0:37:49.400 you've you've essentially beat the game, or you've evolved beyond 0:37:49.440 --> 0:37:52.279 this game and you need more complex games. The crazy thing, 0:37:52.360 --> 0:37:53.839 of course about all of this is that the game 0:37:53.920 --> 0:37:57.160 started out as a sort of psychological exercise and he 0:37:57.200 --> 0:37:59.920 comes for comes around full circle and becoming a tool 0:38:00.280 --> 0:38:03.759 in various psychological experiments, or or a tool used to 0:38:03.880 --> 0:38:07.719 generate data sets for psychological experiments. And remember how we 0:38:07.800 --> 0:38:11.000 said that you don't need a board, you don't need dice, 0:38:11.120 --> 0:38:14.120 you don't need any other materials. You just need that 0:38:14.200 --> 0:38:16.440 card the glance at once and then stick in your 0:38:16.440 --> 0:38:18.839 pocket or you know, push up under your your butt 0:38:18.840 --> 0:38:23.040 while you play. That isn't that's another key advantage here there. 0:38:23.040 --> 0:38:25.840 The cards are just initial reference points, so there's really 0:38:25.880 --> 0:38:31.040 no reason to break from communication and immersion with other players. 0:38:31.080 --> 0:38:34.480 This is especially important for studies that factor in gaze pattern. 0:38:35.160 --> 0:38:36.960 So it's in a way, it's it's again it's like 0:38:37.000 --> 0:38:40.919 poker without the cards. It's just the pure social experiment, right. Yeah, 0:38:40.960 --> 0:38:42.520 you don't have to look at your cards, you don't 0:38:42.520 --> 0:38:45.680 have to go examine your character sheet. You're just in 0:38:45.760 --> 0:38:49.000 the world. Yeah, like there's a there's a game that 0:38:49.160 --> 0:38:53.200 has some similar style to it called Spyfall that came 0:38:53.239 --> 0:38:55.640 out a few years back, and it's one of these 0:38:55.680 --> 0:38:58.000 that if you're if you're up for the work, you 0:38:58.080 --> 0:39:00.839 can create a pin and paper version of it, but 0:39:01.040 --> 0:39:03.279 you generally have to buy a set. But it's a 0:39:03.280 --> 0:39:05.640 game where there's a lot of fun social interaction, but 0:39:06.000 --> 0:39:09.160 you end up referencing sheets a lot to remind yourself, 0:39:09.200 --> 0:39:11.839 like what are the possible locations to guests in the 0:39:11.840 --> 0:39:14.600 course of play. It's still a fun game, but there 0:39:14.680 --> 0:39:17.920 is a distraction uh element to it that is not 0:39:18.040 --> 0:39:21.760 present in Werewolf. Okay, so we're going to game theory, psychology, 0:39:21.800 --> 0:39:24.920 and artificial intelligence. Let's look at game theory first. How 0:39:24.920 --> 0:39:26.880 how does this game figure into game theory? Well, I 0:39:26.880 --> 0:39:28.840 guess we just need to define what game theory is 0:39:28.880 --> 0:39:31.600 real quick for anyone who's not familiar with it. Uh. 0:39:31.840 --> 0:39:36.160 Its origins lie with John von Neuman and Oscar morgen Stern, 0:39:36.560 --> 0:39:39.960 and they introduced game theory to the world in with 0:39:40.400 --> 0:39:43.920 theory of Games and Economic behavior. So basically, this is 0:39:43.960 --> 0:39:49.320 the study of systems that have differential payoffs and different 0:39:49.680 --> 0:39:54.719 actors within them that have competing motivations. Right, that's right. 0:39:54.880 --> 0:39:57.800 As David k. Levine of the Department of Economics that 0:39:57.880 --> 0:40:00.520 u c. L A. Points out, it's an econom mistake 0:40:00.600 --> 0:40:04.400 on what psychologist would call the study of social situations. 0:40:05.000 --> 0:40:08.440 And you have two branches of game theory broad branches. 0:40:08.480 --> 0:40:10.839 You have cooperative and you have non cooperative. I think 0:40:10.840 --> 0:40:13.040 these are pretty straightforward. And then you have sub branches 0:40:13.080 --> 0:40:18.600 that include decision theory, general equilibrium theory, and mechanism design theory. Now, 0:40:18.640 --> 0:40:22.640 if you've seen papers on game theory before, or explanations 0:40:22.640 --> 0:40:24.759 of game theory before, one thing you're going to see 0:40:24.760 --> 0:40:28.319 a lot of is, for example, tables of payoffs where 0:40:28.360 --> 0:40:31.600 you can have axes along a table that show different 0:40:31.680 --> 0:40:35.280 kinds of decisions you can make within this system. Whatever 0:40:35.320 --> 0:40:39.160 the system is, applies to various you know, vast different 0:40:39.239 --> 0:40:42.239 kinds of situations, but different decisions you can make within 0:40:42.280 --> 0:40:45.719 the system, and what the probability of different payoffs for 0:40:45.760 --> 0:40:48.919 those decisions is. Yeah, they create the creation of, say 0:40:48.920 --> 0:40:52.720 a matrix that shows you what the different payoffs are 0:40:53.280 --> 0:40:58.600 based on different player decisions. Like the classic example of 0:40:58.680 --> 0:41:01.600 this is of course, the the Prisoner's dilemma. Yeah, so 0:41:01.680 --> 0:41:04.800 this is a game where it's a very simple version 0:41:04.800 --> 0:41:07.120 of a game where you don't know what the other 0:41:07.200 --> 0:41:10.520 player is doing, but you can make smarter decisions and 0:41:10.640 --> 0:41:14.200 less smart decisions depending on what the potential payoffs and 0:41:14.239 --> 0:41:17.880 punishments are for different decisions you could make. Yeah, and 0:41:17.880 --> 0:41:20.600 when we say game, it's not a fun parlor game 0:41:20.680 --> 0:41:22.360 now the same my werewolf is. But it's just the 0:41:22.800 --> 0:41:26.480 mechanics of it are simple and and fairly fairly interesting. 0:41:26.880 --> 0:41:30.600 The idea is that you have two prisoners. They each 0:41:30.600 --> 0:41:33.280 were brought in because they're suspected of robbing a bank, 0:41:33.560 --> 0:41:36.239 and they have money stashed away somewhere, and then the 0:41:36.239 --> 0:41:38.440 police are trying to get each one in a separate 0:41:38.520 --> 0:41:41.520 room to turn on the other. So, so rat out 0:41:41.560 --> 0:41:45.120 your buddy and you'll go free. If neither rats, then 0:41:45.160 --> 0:41:48.920 they both got walk free and get their fifty share 0:41:49.080 --> 0:41:53.439 of the stolen money fifty percent. What if I want 0:41:53.480 --> 0:41:56.000 more percent? Well, then you've got to be willing not 0:41:56.080 --> 0:42:00.279 only to rat out your partner, but be darn sure 0:42:00.360 --> 0:42:02.760 that they are not going to rat you out, because 0:42:03.040 --> 0:42:05.880 they're faced with the same problem exactly. So if you 0:42:05.960 --> 0:42:08.560 both rat each other out, then you both go to prison, 0:42:08.800 --> 0:42:11.920 and that money just rots in a hole somewhere. But 0:42:12.160 --> 0:42:15.759 if you rat them out and they don't rat out you, 0:42:15.880 --> 0:42:17.560 then you get to keep all of it and they 0:42:17.719 --> 0:42:20.680 rot in a whole somewhere or at least in the penitentiary. 0:42:21.880 --> 0:42:24.839 So yeah, depending on what the different types of payoffs are, 0:42:24.920 --> 0:42:27.960 there are ways of solving this game. And I guess 0:42:27.960 --> 0:42:32.000 in the case where you're comparing money versus jail time, 0:42:32.160 --> 0:42:34.520 you would have to sort of render the jail time 0:42:34.520 --> 0:42:37.359 in a monetary value or something. But you can work 0:42:37.360 --> 0:42:40.880 out probabilities of what your best decision should be given 0:42:41.000 --> 0:42:45.120 decision matrices like this. Now, as you can imagine, this 0:42:45.160 --> 0:42:48.320 relates to Werewolf, because you have it's a it's a 0:42:48.360 --> 0:42:51.640 great opportunity to try and and chart out the motivations 0:42:51.719 --> 0:42:55.680 and respective payoffs for both villagers and werewolves. Yeah. Now, 0:42:55.840 --> 0:42:58.480 part of the problem with Werewolf, though, is it highly 0:42:58.840 --> 0:43:02.160 it depends very much what variables you allow to come 0:43:02.160 --> 0:43:05.239 into play, because as you've said, the game is deceptively 0:43:05.280 --> 0:43:08.400 simple at its core, but there's all this stuff going 0:43:08.480 --> 0:43:11.240 on and it that makes it more complicated than the 0:43:11.320 --> 0:43:13.960 simple rules would lead you to believe. Yes, and then 0:43:14.000 --> 0:43:15.920 you have, of course, all these social elements you're coming 0:43:15.920 --> 0:43:18.839 into play as well, especially in an opening round, like 0:43:18.880 --> 0:43:22.320 how do you how do you create a proper probabilities 0:43:22.400 --> 0:43:26.160 for Hey, Ramsey has a really long beard and looks 0:43:26.200 --> 0:43:27.880 kind of like a werewolf, So we're going to just 0:43:27.920 --> 0:43:31.239 blindly accuse him of murdering a villager. Well, I mean, 0:43:31.400 --> 0:43:33.640 we would say that in reality, since we know the 0:43:33.680 --> 0:43:36.680 cards are distributed at random, that would be basically a 0:43:36.760 --> 0:43:41.479 random accusation. But I've seen this that that first round 0:43:41.560 --> 0:43:45.320 random accusation pick up a lot of steam because ultimately 0:43:45.400 --> 0:43:48.680 there there are no real world stakes to Werewolf. Of course, 0:43:48.719 --> 0:43:52.879 the question is do players actually do any better when 0:43:52.880 --> 0:43:55.440 they're playing with some kind of strategy than they would 0:43:55.480 --> 0:43:57.879 if they were playing randomly. We'll come back to that, 0:43:58.400 --> 0:43:59.840 all right. So we're not going to hit you with 0:43:59.880 --> 0:44:03.160 a bunch of matrices and equations here, And we also 0:44:03.200 --> 0:44:08.120 can't possibly cover every study, every proproposal, every research project 0:44:08.200 --> 0:44:10.640 to use Mafia or Werewolf, but we're gonna touch on 0:44:10.680 --> 0:44:13.040 some of the interesting studies and it's worth recognizing some 0:44:13.120 --> 0:44:16.760 of the recurring features of these studies. So more often 0:44:16.800 --> 0:44:19.760 than not, you're going to encounter a very boiled down 0:44:19.920 --> 0:44:23.840 version of the Werewolf rules. So no cupids or anything, right, Like, 0:44:23.920 --> 0:44:28.200 generally they're gonna be most interested with just villagers and werewolves, 0:44:28.200 --> 0:44:31.600 no detectives, no seers or what have you, because let's 0:44:31.640 --> 0:44:34.040 face it, those are those are pretty great mechanics, just 0:44:34.480 --> 0:44:37.240 right out of the box. Right. And also we mentioned 0:44:37.280 --> 0:44:40.239 the social dynamics that come into play, and these again 0:44:40.280 --> 0:44:43.160 can be very difficult to model. So you might be wondering, 0:44:43.200 --> 0:44:47.000 as a matter of course, generally, who wins when you 0:44:47.040 --> 0:44:50.080 play this game you've got werewolves versus villagers. Is there 0:44:50.120 --> 0:44:53.080 is there a standard way to predict who wins more often? Well, 0:44:53.120 --> 0:44:56.520 there was a probability paper called a Mathematical Model of 0:44:56.560 --> 0:45:00.719 the Mafia Game in by PYOTR mcdowah uh, and it 0:45:00.880 --> 0:45:03.680 found and this is a big this is a big caveat, 0:45:03.719 --> 0:45:07.680 but it found in a simulation where all killings are random, 0:45:07.880 --> 0:45:11.440 so nobody has any special information. In each round, the 0:45:11.520 --> 0:45:16.040 villagers execute somebody random and the werewolves kill somebody random. 0:45:16.040 --> 0:45:18.960 In this version of play quote, it turns out that 0:45:19.040 --> 0:45:22.680 a relatively small number of the Mafia members i e. 0:45:22.840 --> 0:45:25.880 Proportional to the square root of the total number of 0:45:25.920 --> 0:45:29.520 players gives an equal winning chance for both groups. So 0:45:29.560 --> 0:45:32.320 if your number of mafia members is about the square 0:45:32.440 --> 0:45:35.560 root of the total number of players. It should be 0:45:35.640 --> 0:45:38.720 roughly fifty fifty. But the game isn't always that simple, 0:45:38.840 --> 0:45:42.800 and maybe the maybe players are better than random chance. 0:45:42.880 --> 0:45:46.200 What do you think, Robert, Yeah, I mean, especially when 0:45:46.239 --> 0:45:48.759 you factor in all these just additional aspects of the 0:45:48.760 --> 0:45:52.000 social dynamics. Uh. So the author here, he has another 0:45:52.080 --> 0:45:54.560 quote that I think sums up the difficulties of modeling 0:45:54.600 --> 0:45:58.360 the game. He says, quote a dry mathematical model maybe 0:45:58.360 --> 0:46:01.759 a backbone of a more complex one, but certainly is 0:46:01.800 --> 0:46:04.839 not enough to describe a real game. During course of play, 0:46:04.920 --> 0:46:08.920 citizens gain some information, either by discovering another's identity by 0:46:08.920 --> 0:46:14.080 themselves or trying to catch messages. Furthermore, voting maybe subject 0:46:14.080 --> 0:46:17.919 to some kind of witch hut mentality. Moreover, rarely are 0:46:17.960 --> 0:46:20.640 all players the same. Usually they are ones with higher 0:46:20.640 --> 0:46:23.759 and lower influence on the others. Right, so some people 0:46:23.800 --> 0:46:26.440 are just really good at leading the angry mobs to 0:46:26.560 --> 0:46:30.360 drag somebody to the gallows. Uh. Sometimes people do actually 0:46:30.440 --> 0:46:33.600 get some kind of useful information in the course of play. 0:46:33.920 --> 0:46:38.000 I discovered a section in a book um that goes 0:46:38.040 --> 0:46:40.879 into some of these interesting variations on the game and 0:46:41.360 --> 0:46:44.120 so so Robert, see if you'll follow me down this path, 0:46:44.200 --> 0:46:46.720 I want to see how this comparison to your werewolf experience. 0:46:46.760 --> 0:46:49.560 So the American writer Adam gott Nick, you might know 0:46:49.680 --> 0:46:53.040 him from good essays in the New Yorker. Yeah stuffs 0:46:53.080 --> 0:46:55.880 come up on here before Yeah um. He published a 0:46:55.880 --> 0:46:58.879 book in two thousand and eight called Through the Children's Game, 0:46:58.920 --> 0:47:01.040 A Home in New York, which is basically a memoir 0:47:01.080 --> 0:47:03.640 about life in New York City, especially after nine eleven, 0:47:04.080 --> 0:47:07.120 And in one section of the book he talks about 0:47:07.160 --> 0:47:11.160 this period where his friends have become addicted to a 0:47:11.239 --> 0:47:15.239 variant of Werewolf. Though the version they plays Mafia. You know, 0:47:15.880 --> 0:47:19.080 you can't judge them too harshly. They are in New York. Uh, 0:47:19.160 --> 0:47:21.440 so that's a touchstone for them. And they play in 0:47:21.440 --> 0:47:25.719 groups of fifteen to twenty with three Mafia a narrator 0:47:25.840 --> 0:47:30.560 called God one commandante who's the detective character basically the 0:47:30.600 --> 0:47:33.080 same as the Seer, and then the rest are villagers. 0:47:33.800 --> 0:47:35.960 That's a big game. I like it. So Gotten Ex 0:47:36.000 --> 0:47:39.040 played a lot, and he reports that the villagers win 0:47:39.560 --> 0:47:42.360 more often than the Mafia. So a minute ago we 0:47:42.400 --> 0:47:45.520 saw that mathematically, if if players are doing no better 0:47:45.560 --> 0:47:48.520 than random, you should predict about a fifty fifty chance 0:47:48.680 --> 0:47:51.440 for each team to win. But Gottenix says the villagers 0:47:51.480 --> 0:47:54.120 win more often, and he says that in his experience, 0:47:54.200 --> 0:47:57.800 the best starting strategy if you're a villager is simply 0:47:57.880 --> 0:48:01.200 to look at everybody's face as and as God commands 0:48:01.200 --> 0:48:03.919 you to open your eyes. And basically what you do 0:48:04.280 --> 0:48:06.239 is you just look around and you try to get 0:48:06.280 --> 0:48:09.160 a feeling for who looks guilty, believe it or not, 0:48:09.280 --> 0:48:12.080 he says in his in his experience, this works better 0:48:12.120 --> 0:48:15.640 than you would expect, which if he's correct about that, 0:48:15.640 --> 0:48:17.719 that would indicate that we do have some kind of 0:48:17.800 --> 0:48:22.120 natural guiltiness detection system built in how we recognize other 0:48:22.160 --> 0:48:24.960 people's faces. We might get to more about that in 0:48:24.960 --> 0:48:27.319 a study we look at in a minute. But as 0:48:27.400 --> 0:48:30.759 the game goes on, he says, deductive reasoning becomes more important. 0:48:30.800 --> 0:48:33.680 So you look for, say, patterns and who gets killed 0:48:34.080 --> 0:48:36.880 after accusing whom, So you might start to notice that 0:48:36.960 --> 0:48:39.840 everyone who accuses Alice of being part of the werewolf 0:48:39.880 --> 0:48:42.560 mafia tends to get killed the very next night. You 0:48:42.560 --> 0:48:45.600 can probably guess what's going on. Then again, they might 0:48:45.640 --> 0:48:47.480 just be trying to throw you off the track people 0:48:47.480 --> 0:48:52.240 are crafty um got Nick writes that the ostensible pleasure 0:48:52.320 --> 0:48:55.319 of the game is in testing how good you are 0:48:55.360 --> 0:48:58.240 at lying uh, and how good you are at spotting 0:48:58.320 --> 0:49:02.240 lying behavior, and others like this captivating question. You always 0:49:02.280 --> 0:49:05.160 wonder how good you are at spotting a liar, because 0:49:05.160 --> 0:49:07.160 it's hard to know in real life. Like I was 0:49:07.160 --> 0:49:09.919 talking about earlier, real life is full of so much 0:49:09.960 --> 0:49:13.080 ambiguity in questions that are never resolved, and trying to 0:49:13.200 --> 0:49:16.040 root out the deception of other people. And there's one 0:49:16.200 --> 0:49:19.040 excellent section. I just wanted to read a quote from 0:49:19.040 --> 0:49:21.719 his book and see if it matches with your experience, 0:49:21.840 --> 0:49:25.520 so goth Nick writes, quote, The really fascinating thing about 0:49:25.600 --> 0:49:29.640 Mafia is seeing how much pure irrationality lingers in its play, 0:49:30.239 --> 0:49:33.600 how little real deduction, and how much sheer panic govern 0:49:33.719 --> 0:49:37.600 its conduct. The game quickly breaks down as social groups 0:49:37.640 --> 0:49:41.480 will into small circles of belief, which become lynch mobs 0:49:41.480 --> 0:49:45.360 of mistrust on the next turn. As these small circles 0:49:45.400 --> 0:49:49.000 within the group form and break the emotional authenticity of 0:49:49.040 --> 0:49:54.040 the alliances, The felt pleasure of trusting another is startlingly 0:49:54.239 --> 0:49:58.240 frightening lee real. I think it's Larry. It must be Larry, 0:49:58.280 --> 0:50:02.160 George says to you, filling his eyes with sincere persuasiveness, 0:50:02.440 --> 0:50:08.200 leaning forward, confident, conspiring, and you nod with conspiratorial glee. Yes, 0:50:08.360 --> 0:50:11.560 it must be Larry, look at him, and for that moment, 0:50:11.640 --> 0:50:15.239 the bond between you and George is so intense as 0:50:15.280 --> 0:50:18.520 to overshadow your general and complete lack of interest in 0:50:18.560 --> 0:50:22.080 George as a person. You and George against the mafia, 0:50:22.560 --> 0:50:26.319 But then the quick nightly shadow intrudes, what if George 0:50:26.440 --> 0:50:30.040 is the mafia? Yet the proper suspicions, though they rise, 0:50:30.200 --> 0:50:34.359 rarely override these instant bonds. The impulse to trust and 0:50:34.440 --> 0:50:37.960 go on trusting a confidant is so strong that it 0:50:38.000 --> 0:50:43.640 often survives even overwhelming evidence that the confidant is a rat. So, Robert, 0:50:43.680 --> 0:50:45.840 you've played a lot. Does this match your experience? Do 0:50:45.880 --> 0:50:49.480 you think that that the game really, more than anything else, 0:50:49.560 --> 0:50:54.719 hinges on establishing bonds and connections with other players. Um. 0:50:54.760 --> 0:50:56.360 I think it is a huge part of it, and 0:50:56.400 --> 0:51:00.279 it it gets back to that sort of icebreaker quality 0:51:00.320 --> 0:51:02.880 of the game, because I've certainly played it in settings 0:51:03.320 --> 0:51:06.279 where I don't know a lot of people and they'll 0:51:06.320 --> 0:51:08.400 be like a large portion of the group that is, 0:51:08.560 --> 0:51:11.759 you know, another friend group that I'm not privy to. 0:51:12.320 --> 0:51:14.880 It's interesting to play in a group like that because 0:51:15.600 --> 0:51:19.320 he mentioned connection, the connection that exists during these accusations 0:51:19.440 --> 0:51:21.760 in the in the middle of all of this debate, 0:51:22.360 --> 0:51:24.680 and it does give you this this amazing chance to 0:51:24.719 --> 0:51:28.360 have this really intense connection with somebody that you you 0:51:28.719 --> 0:51:30.759 maybe even not even sure what their name is right now. 0:51:30.920 --> 0:51:33.360 You just know them as oh, well, they're they're the 0:51:33.360 --> 0:51:36.640 they're the the bread baker in the medieval town, and 0:51:36.680 --> 0:51:38.799 that's the that's maybe the as much as you know 0:51:38.880 --> 0:51:42.200 about their life, but you have this intense connection based 0:51:42.239 --> 0:51:45.760 on the game. Um like. By the way, that's another 0:51:45.800 --> 0:51:48.960 reason as a as the game master, I like to 0:51:49.080 --> 0:51:51.120 dish out the different or not dish them out, but 0:51:51.160 --> 0:51:53.400 ask people to choose a role in the medieval village 0:51:53.880 --> 0:51:56.840 because it gives you something to refer to. If you 0:51:56.880 --> 0:52:00.440 don't know their name yet, you can just say, oh, 0:52:00.440 --> 0:52:02.359 if you can't remember, it's Carroll, you can just say. 0:52:02.640 --> 0:52:06.719 And then the cobbler of the town, uh is found dead. 0:52:07.200 --> 0:52:10.480 You don't have to say care, Uh, well, I've got 0:52:10.480 --> 0:52:14.440 an observation along similar lines. Got Nick says another part 0:52:14.440 --> 0:52:16.719 of what's great about the game is it eliminates the 0:52:16.760 --> 0:52:20.520 need for other conversation and small talk with your neighbors 0:52:20.560 --> 0:52:23.560 at a party, he says, quote, instead of telling them 0:52:23.560 --> 0:52:27.520 elaborate social lies in an unformed context, you get to 0:52:27.520 --> 0:52:31.640 tell them elaborate social lies in a formal one. Yeah. Yeah, 0:52:31.920 --> 0:52:35.080 this comes back to just the immersion of the Werewolf 0:52:35.120 --> 0:52:38.600 gaming experience, because it is often the case where people 0:52:38.680 --> 0:52:40.640 just go they just go all in on it, and 0:52:40.640 --> 0:52:42.520 they're not gonna be talking about anything else. They're not 0:52:42.560 --> 0:52:45.240 talking about the you know, the day that everyone had, 0:52:45.760 --> 0:52:48.319 or or what supper was like. They are just all 0:52:48.400 --> 0:52:54.919 in firing along these these these new communicative pathways. Yeah. 0:52:55.120 --> 0:52:58.040 One more dynamic, he mentions, is that the game is 0:52:58.080 --> 0:53:03.440 actually filled with many games based on existing relationships. Specifically, 0:53:03.719 --> 0:53:07.600 he singles out couples that are playing. Each couple tries 0:53:07.680 --> 0:53:10.840 to catch the other, the partner in that couple lying, 0:53:11.200 --> 0:53:14.560 and focuses primarily on whether they should be suspicious of 0:53:14.600 --> 0:53:18.799 their own partner. Does that match your experience? Yeah? Yeah, 0:53:18.840 --> 0:53:21.160 I mean, especially in that opening round of play, they 0:53:21.160 --> 0:53:23.759 don't have anything else to go on except existing real 0:53:23.800 --> 0:53:26.839 world social connections. A lot of times and those those 0:53:26.960 --> 0:53:30.680 end up being used and then when people start making accusations, uh, 0:53:30.719 --> 0:53:33.600 those shows social dynamics come into play as well. It's 0:53:33.600 --> 0:53:36.600 another reason I really like the cupid role because you 0:53:36.680 --> 0:53:39.600 get into this like why why does the cupid choose 0:53:39.640 --> 0:53:42.480 these two people to be star crossed lovers? You know, 0:53:42.680 --> 0:53:46.440 because they're actually a couple. Is it because they were 0:53:46.480 --> 0:53:49.319 like teasing each other early in the evening or it's 0:53:49.360 --> 0:53:52.319 just hilarious to think of them as lovers to make 0:53:52.360 --> 0:53:55.279 them embarrassed. Yeah, yeah, so it add that is a 0:53:55.440 --> 0:53:59.040 case where it adds this extra level of of interaction. Uh, 0:53:59.080 --> 0:54:02.640 not only with the in game social dynamics, but the 0:54:02.800 --> 0:54:05.759 real world social dynamics as well. Right, it's it's like 0:54:05.880 --> 0:54:11.040 dad humor, like tell us about your boyfriend exactly. Okay, 0:54:11.080 --> 0:54:12.879 we should take a quick break and when we come back, 0:54:12.960 --> 0:54:15.560 we're going to talk about the science of deception and 0:54:15.600 --> 0:54:31.080 were wolf death by can't do and Beneath was about 0:54:31.080 --> 0:54:36.120 a human she should never pretend to be a werewolf? 0:54:38.680 --> 0:54:47.680 What does those werewolves triumph? Again? Unfortunately I was the seer. 0:54:48.880 --> 0:54:55.040 I knew that she was away. You never got and 0:54:55.080 --> 0:54:58.040 I never got to be the werewolves. And the first 0:54:58.040 --> 0:55:00.440 thing I was gonna do is declare that I was 0:55:00.520 --> 0:55:04.719 the he here and in point out the werewolf. Right, 0:55:06.120 --> 0:55:07.640 that would have put a whole different dynamic that we 0:55:07.640 --> 0:55:11.759 had not inexperience. That's what I'm saying. You good thing. 0:55:11.800 --> 0:55:19.560 We off with your hand at the beginning. You're being 0:55:19.640 --> 0:55:23.719 very aggressive like it, and I think you're the Werewolf. 0:55:25.360 --> 0:55:27.520 I don't know. How do I think Joe is, because 0:55:27.920 --> 0:55:34.279 he's I'm seriously I would say, no, I'm trying. I'm 0:55:34.320 --> 0:55:37.040 trying to get a vibe on somebody, and she actually 0:55:37.080 --> 0:55:41.799 seems kind of sincere um. I think Robert. I think 0:55:41.880 --> 0:55:49.520 maybe Robert. I again, am just look at that devilish 0:55:49.640 --> 0:55:52.360 grin on his face. This is the grind of someone 0:55:52.520 --> 0:55:56.640 who knows perfectly well that their soul was pure. My 0:55:56.760 --> 0:56:03.560 hard work has a scrubbed away whatever minor satanic delight. 0:56:03.920 --> 0:56:10.480 Look at this now. Earlier we mentioned a Wired article 0:56:10.520 --> 0:56:12.200 from two thousand and ten about the game, and it 0:56:12.280 --> 0:56:17.040 addressed this question of the scientific study of deception and 0:56:17.080 --> 0:56:19.880 what what psychology can tell us about deception within the 0:56:19.920 --> 0:56:24.520 game of Werewolf. According to a gaming psychologist at the 0:56:24.680 --> 0:56:29.239 London Metropolitan University named Simon Moore, there's actually not much 0:56:29.320 --> 0:56:33.319 diversity in our skill at spotting liars. According to More, 0:56:34.040 --> 0:56:37.480 there are not human lie detectors walking among us. Quote, 0:56:37.680 --> 0:56:40.279 if you ask someone on the street, are they better 0:56:40.360 --> 0:56:43.320 at detecting a liar than a police officer, they'll probably 0:56:43.360 --> 0:56:46.680 say no. But a police officer and a general person 0:56:46.800 --> 0:56:51.080 both have a fifty percent success rate at detecting liars. Man, 0:56:51.160 --> 0:56:55.000 that's that's frustrating. You would hope there would be people 0:56:55.000 --> 0:56:57.400 who would be better at it among us. Yeah, I 0:56:57.440 --> 0:57:00.160 mean you certainly when you do start using lie as 0:57:00.160 --> 0:57:03.040 you become even more self conscious, do you think, oh, 0:57:03.080 --> 0:57:06.080 they're going to see right through it? But really they have, Yeah, 0:57:06.120 --> 0:57:11.760 exactly so, so that's at first. Though, certain circumstances, according 0:57:11.800 --> 0:57:14.640 to More, do tip the balance and change our ability 0:57:14.680 --> 0:57:17.080 to get away with lies and also to detect a 0:57:17.160 --> 0:57:20.600 lize in others. For example, when you're stressed, it's harder 0:57:20.600 --> 0:57:23.000 to get away with lying. Now we all know about 0:57:23.040 --> 0:57:27.320 the uh the fallibility of the polygraph tests a true 0:57:27.400 --> 0:57:31.680 lie detector test, but there is some truth to the 0:57:31.720 --> 0:57:34.360 principle on which the polygraph test is based. It's just 0:57:34.400 --> 0:57:38.720 not necessarily as reliable as it is often depicted in fiction, 0:57:38.920 --> 0:57:41.280 or maybe even in some people who actually use it. 0:57:41.920 --> 0:57:44.920 But the principle it's based on is that lying causes 0:57:45.000 --> 0:57:48.480 the stress physiological stress reactions in the body that you know, 0:57:48.560 --> 0:57:50.720 messes with your heart rate, it messes with your blood 0:57:50.720 --> 0:57:54.080 pressure and stuff like that. Um, and as you get 0:57:54.120 --> 0:57:57.960 more stressed, it gets harder and harder to lie. So 0:57:58.200 --> 0:58:00.440 this would sort of mean that at the beginning of 0:58:00.520 --> 0:58:02.640 the game, lying might be easy when there's not much 0:58:02.680 --> 0:58:06.080 pressure on you. As other players get eliminated and the 0:58:06.160 --> 0:58:09.680 spotlight narrows on you and the stakes of the game 0:58:09.720 --> 0:58:12.400 go up, More predicts that it's going to be harder 0:58:12.400 --> 0:58:14.960 and harder for people to get away with lying without 0:58:15.000 --> 0:58:18.480 people seeing through their facade. Yeah, because early in the game, 0:58:18.920 --> 0:58:21.000 especially if you have a larger group, it's easy to 0:58:21.320 --> 0:58:24.800 just sort of set there quietly and decide with this 0:58:24.920 --> 0:58:28.720 faction or another. But yeah, it is things. Is things proceed, 0:58:28.840 --> 0:58:32.200 you have to be outspoken, uh, otherwise people are going 0:58:32.240 --> 0:58:35.800 to be suspicious of your silence, right, And that actually 0:58:35.840 --> 0:58:37.680 is a factor in another study I'm going to mention 0:58:37.720 --> 0:58:40.160 in a minute now. More also says lots of our 0:58:40.200 --> 0:58:43.600 lives are lives of exaggeration. I think we probably know 0:58:43.720 --> 0:58:46.800 this from experience. People are more likely to sort of 0:58:47.040 --> 0:58:51.680 turn a half truth into a big exaggerated claim than 0:58:51.720 --> 0:58:55.000 they are to just blatantly say something that is completely 0:58:55.080 --> 0:58:58.560 untrue with no basis in reality. Right, people are more 0:58:58.640 --> 0:59:01.040 more likely to fudge than just to make up a 0:59:01.080 --> 0:59:04.840 total lie, and so blatant lies like I am not 0:59:04.960 --> 0:59:08.400 a werewolf when you know you are are more difficult 0:59:08.440 --> 0:59:11.720 than these kinds of exaggerations. But More also says it's 0:59:11.760 --> 0:59:15.560 easier to lie about straightforward information than to lie about 0:59:15.600 --> 0:59:18.480 your own emotional state. So if you're trying to put 0:59:18.480 --> 0:59:20.919 on a show of outrage, like you know, how could 0:59:20.960 --> 0:59:23.400 you accuse me of being a ware wolf? After all 0:59:23.440 --> 0:59:26.760 of our friendship or whatever, how could you accuse me? 0:59:27.480 --> 0:59:30.560 You quickly exhaust yourself, and More says that a person 0:59:30.680 --> 0:59:32.800 doing that is going to start to falter at this 0:59:32.920 --> 0:59:36.720 deceptive performance. The feigned outrage turns into sort of more 0:59:36.800 --> 0:59:40.920 simple objection, or turns into other emotions that are easier 0:59:40.960 --> 0:59:44.440 to fake, like aggression, and people will pick up on this. 0:59:44.600 --> 0:59:47.120 You start to look like a dirty rat. And this 0:59:47.240 --> 0:59:51.400 is given as an explanation for why the villagers actually 0:59:51.440 --> 0:59:56.120 win more often than a simple random choice would would predict. 0:59:56.640 --> 0:59:59.040 Villagers at some point do start to be able to 0:59:59.080 --> 1:00:02.440 notice people lying? And we have some some studies to 1:00:02.480 --> 1:00:05.120 back this up. Yeah really, yeah, some some studies that 1:00:05.200 --> 1:00:09.680 are generally conference proceedings here, So who knows exactly how 1:00:09.720 --> 1:00:13.680 correct these claims are. But these are some claimed findings 1:00:13.720 --> 1:00:16.600 on how to detect deception that we found related to 1:00:16.640 --> 1:00:21.320 the game Werewolf. So one was called are You a Werewolf? 1:00:21.440 --> 1:00:25.200 Detecting deceptive roles and outcomes in a Conversational role playing game? 1:00:25.240 --> 1:00:28.520 And this was presented at a Acoustic Speech and Signal 1:00:28.560 --> 1:00:33.600 Processing in the I Tripoli International Conference. And the authors 1:00:33.640 --> 1:00:37.080 here created this automated method for detecting players determined to 1:00:37.120 --> 1:00:42.080 be liars by analyzing the acoustic properties of their speech patterns. 1:00:42.120 --> 1:00:44.440 So I thought that was interesting. Can a computer just 1:00:44.560 --> 1:00:49.440 listen to quantitative elements of what happens when somebody speaks 1:00:50.120 --> 1:00:53.439 and say I caught a liar here? So they tried 1:00:53.440 --> 1:00:55.320 to correlate that. They tried to find okay, can we 1:00:55.400 --> 1:00:58.080 can we listen with the computer and see does it 1:00:58.200 --> 1:01:01.560 detect patterns and lying? And they claimed that it did. 1:01:01.920 --> 1:01:04.720 They said their method could successfully predict the lying behavior 1:01:04.840 --> 1:01:08.360 better than chance just by listening to acoustic properties. What 1:01:08.440 --> 1:01:11.120 does this mean for human players. Well, one simple finding 1:01:11.200 --> 1:01:16.200 seemed to be that liars speak less, presumably to limit 1:01:16.240 --> 1:01:19.840 their risk of making revealing mistakes. This is interesting because 1:01:19.880 --> 1:01:22.840 one thing I've I've definitely seen before is you have 1:01:22.840 --> 1:01:26.400 a case where someone's a very outspoken werewolf critic. You know, 1:01:26.440 --> 1:01:28.440 they're very outspoken. They're they're going to be the lead 1:01:28.480 --> 1:01:33.400 detective in finding the murderers in the village. But then 1:01:33.440 --> 1:01:36.840 they'll come, uh, they'll come a game where there's suddenly 1:01:36.880 --> 1:01:39.280 a lot more quiet. They're not making all these acts. 1:01:39.280 --> 1:01:41.120 They're not they're not right at the front of the 1:01:41.160 --> 1:01:43.760 crowd with the pitch for it. And people notice and 1:01:43.800 --> 1:01:47.680 they say, well, John is kind of quiet this round, 1:01:48.080 --> 1:01:52.280 suspiciously quiet, as if perhaps he is a werewolf. Yeah, 1:01:52.320 --> 1:01:55.120 come on, Cynthia, didn't you have some zeal for werewolf 1:01:55.200 --> 1:01:57.960 killing in the last game. Yeah, suddenly you've got you've 1:01:57.960 --> 1:02:02.480 got soft on the anthropy. Yeah. So that does seem 1:02:02.480 --> 1:02:04.600 to be a good tell. People who are trying to 1:02:04.640 --> 1:02:08.960 maintain deception offer less information. They just talk less, And 1:02:09.000 --> 1:02:11.480 it's pretty easy to see why. This study seems to 1:02:11.560 --> 1:02:16.120 confirm that finding. Also, it found that quote the distribution 1:02:16.200 --> 1:02:20.480 of pitch and energy values are higher for liars. So, 1:02:20.520 --> 1:02:23.280 according to the study, if somebody is raising their voice 1:02:23.280 --> 1:02:26.240 in pitch and volume, they're slightly more likely to be 1:02:26.280 --> 1:02:31.080 a liar. Okay, that's interesting because I know that I 1:02:31.160 --> 1:02:34.760 have I sometimes raised my voice when I am I'm 1:02:34.840 --> 1:02:38.280 lying about not being a werewolf. Really, yeah, I'll be like, well, 1:02:38.280 --> 1:02:40.880 how dare you accuse me of that sort of thing? Now, 1:02:40.960 --> 1:02:42.680 I'm gonna have to be careful, gonna kept keep it low. 1:02:42.720 --> 1:02:46.320 You gotta talk more, and you gotta stay calm. Yeah, 1:02:46.360 --> 1:02:48.280 but how do you stay calm about something like this? 1:02:49.040 --> 1:02:51.200 Are dying? How could you accuse me of being awarewolf? 1:02:51.240 --> 1:02:53.280 Here's the thing, I'm not aware wolf, and the reason 1:02:53.400 --> 1:02:55.480 is yeah. And this is where that this is actually 1:02:55.480 --> 1:02:58.520 where the fluff becomes nice sort of villager fluff, where 1:02:58.520 --> 1:03:01.240 you can say, how could I possible be the werewolf? 1:03:01.280 --> 1:03:05.040 I am the cobbler. I have to make shoes all night. 1:03:05.080 --> 1:03:09.160 If I was running around slaughtering townspeople, then everyone would 1:03:09.200 --> 1:03:13.680 be barefoot. Okay, So a couple more. One was a 1:03:13.720 --> 1:03:17.800 two thousand and eight paper by Jao and Sung which 1:03:17.880 --> 1:03:21.479 was called Cues to Deception in Online Chinese Groups. And 1:03:21.840 --> 1:03:25.200 this is a sample group of Chinese players playing online. 1:03:25.520 --> 1:03:29.120 The authors found that quote deceivers tended to communicate less. 1:03:29.200 --> 1:03:32.120 Yet again, so people who talked less are more likely 1:03:32.160 --> 1:03:36.720 to be liars. But also quote showed low complexity and 1:03:36.920 --> 1:03:40.240 this is in their speech meaning for example, shorter sentences 1:03:40.280 --> 1:03:45.440 and shorter words, and then they continue and high diversity, 1:03:45.520 --> 1:03:49.720 so that means for example, more unique words. So their 1:03:49.840 --> 1:03:52.240 analysis found that you want to look for a liar, 1:03:52.280 --> 1:03:54.640 look for the one who doesn't talk much. When they 1:03:54.680 --> 1:03:57.560 do talk, they might talk in shorter sentences or less 1:03:57.600 --> 1:04:03.760 complex words, but use more unique word choice. Interesting. Interesting, Okay, 1:04:03.840 --> 1:04:08.560 one more uh, This was paper called Detection of Deception 1:04:08.640 --> 1:04:11.080 in the Mafia Party Game. Obviously we've got some people 1:04:11.120 --> 1:04:14.240 who don't understand the benefits of wherewere And this one 1:04:14.280 --> 1:04:17.440 presented another automatic system for lie detection. This time it 1:04:17.520 --> 1:04:21.240 was based on facial cues, so the movements of eyebrows, 1:04:21.240 --> 1:04:24.640 eyes and mouths on videos. And this one's kind of 1:04:24.680 --> 1:04:27.760 hard to explain because it's hard to translate what they 1:04:27.800 --> 1:04:31.240 found about facial movement analysis into words here on this 1:04:31.320 --> 1:04:34.000 podcast in a useful way. But just quickly, some of 1:04:34.040 --> 1:04:38.040 their tentative findings apparently showed that I eyebrow and mouth 1:04:38.120 --> 1:04:42.640 movements caused by lying might be those more associated with fear, guilt, 1:04:42.880 --> 1:04:46.760 or delight, while truthful facial expressions might be those that 1:04:46.800 --> 1:04:50.760 you would more closely associate with sadness. Okay, but this 1:04:50.840 --> 1:04:54.280 is all with humans, right, humans, and arguably some werewolves. 1:04:55.200 --> 1:04:56.640 I don't know how the game would change if you 1:04:56.640 --> 1:05:00.320 had real werewolves playing among your party friends, but uh 1:05:00.440 --> 1:05:02.600 that that would be great if wherewolves were real, we'd 1:05:02.600 --> 1:05:04.680 have to get one of these studies and see how 1:05:04.720 --> 1:05:07.040 they played. But what we've not looked at so far 1:05:07.360 --> 1:05:10.800 is computerized players. That's right, and there there are a 1:05:10.880 --> 1:05:13.960 number of cool studies that looked at this. Because another 1:05:14.000 --> 1:05:16.800 great way to use were wolf is is if you're 1:05:16.800 --> 1:05:20.480 studying either lie detecting robots or robots that lie. And 1:05:20.480 --> 1:05:22.720 when I say robots, and of course using the fun 1:05:22.840 --> 1:05:27.360 version of robots, we're actually talking about uh programs and 1:05:27.520 --> 1:05:32.120 or or very soft AI to try and determine patterns 1:05:32.120 --> 1:05:34.880 of human behavior. Well, no, actually, so to clarify, I 1:05:34.880 --> 1:05:36.920 guess we have looked at a couple of papers that 1:05:36.960 --> 1:05:41.000 claim to have a method for determining some kind of 1:05:41.040 --> 1:05:44.800 automated lie detection. We haven't looked at AI liars yet, 1:05:45.320 --> 1:05:48.560 and we haven't, I guess, looked at like robust AI 1:05:48.760 --> 1:05:52.880 players that incorporate information about lie detection or that really 1:05:52.920 --> 1:05:56.000 try to uh to get in the mind of the liar, 1:05:56.160 --> 1:05:59.320 just more like they're detecting correlations and things sorted out 1:05:59.320 --> 1:06:03.200 by the humans. Anyway, let's let's let's look at some 1:06:03.280 --> 1:06:06.120 AI lying Okay, all right, Well, I was looking at 1:06:06.920 --> 1:06:11.680 a presentation titled the Great Deceivers, Virtual Agents and Believable Lies, 1:06:12.200 --> 1:06:15.000 and this was by the US at all. They'll come 1:06:15.040 --> 1:06:17.120 up again, And this was presented at the two thousand 1:06:17.200 --> 1:06:22.760 thirteen proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. 1:06:22.800 --> 1:06:27.080 So they used Werewolf, and they used Werewolf not Mafia, 1:06:27.280 --> 1:06:30.480 so thumbs up. They used it to test a two 1:06:30.600 --> 1:06:35.400 level theory of mind model for virtual agents. Now theory 1:06:35.400 --> 1:06:37.920 of mind, of course, just to refresh, that is our 1:06:38.000 --> 1:06:43.800 basic human ability to conceive the mind state of another person. Right, 1:06:43.880 --> 1:06:46.960 It's absolutely crucial for lying. Right, It's kind of hard 1:06:47.000 --> 1:06:50.160 to lie if you can't imagine what somebody else's mental 1:06:50.200 --> 1:06:54.439 state is, because in lying, you're trying to make their 1:06:54.440 --> 1:06:58.360 mental state not correspond to what you know to be true, Right, 1:06:58.920 --> 1:07:01.400 now why would they be doing this. Well, they wanted 1:07:01.440 --> 1:07:05.120 to see which version, either a a one level or 1:07:05.160 --> 1:07:09.200 two level theory of mind model, would would make this 1:07:09.440 --> 1:07:13.080 actor seem seem more socially intelligent. A one level or 1:07:13.120 --> 1:07:15.480 two level theory of mind model. Okay, so let me 1:07:15.480 --> 1:07:18.400 guess what that is. One level theory of mind is 1:07:18.680 --> 1:07:21.040 I know what you're thinking, or at least I'm imagining 1:07:21.040 --> 1:07:24.560 what you're thinking. Two level would be what I imagine 1:07:24.600 --> 1:07:28.120 what you're thinking about what I'm thinking. Yeah, you get 1:07:28.160 --> 1:07:30.680 into that hole? Would he tell me that this door 1:07:30.760 --> 1:07:33.440 leads to the center of the labyrinth? Sort of a situation. 1:07:34.040 --> 1:07:37.800 So you're you're modeling someone else's theory of mind in 1:07:37.880 --> 1:07:40.520 two level theory of mind. Right, So, so here's a 1:07:40.560 --> 1:07:42.640 quote from the paper, just to boil it all down. 1:07:42.960 --> 1:07:46.720 Two versions of the Werewolf Agent were implemented. One has 1:07:46.760 --> 1:07:49.720 a single level theory of mind, able to represent what 1:07:49.840 --> 1:07:52.960 victims believe, but not what victims think it or the 1:07:52.960 --> 1:07:56.040 other their victims believe. The second has a two level 1:07:56.080 --> 1:07:59.000 theory of mind, able to represent what victims think about 1:07:59.080 --> 1:08:02.320 what it knows, and in general, what victims think about 1:08:02.360 --> 1:08:08.520 the suspicions of others. And then both versions had inference 1:08:08.640 --> 1:08:12.720 rules to determine suspects. Now, I would generally imagine that 1:08:12.960 --> 1:08:16.560 a computer that tries to go two steps down the 1:08:16.640 --> 1:08:20.760 rabbit hole would be better at lying and detecting lies, right, Yeah, 1:08:20.800 --> 1:08:22.759 And that's that's pretty much what they found. They found 1:08:22.800 --> 1:08:26.640 that a two level theory of mind where wolf had 1:08:26.680 --> 1:08:31.000 a leg up on single level theory of mind villagers, 1:08:31.320 --> 1:08:34.880 and then a follow up test showed that that indeed, 1:08:35.160 --> 1:08:39.040 the two level theory of mind where wolves were also 1:08:39.120 --> 1:08:43.439 perceived as being more intelligent than a single level theory 1:08:43.439 --> 1:08:45.679 of mind where wolf. And of course this becomes important 1:08:45.720 --> 1:08:47.640 when you're just you're not talking about like how to 1:08:47.800 --> 1:08:51.400 build uh an ai that is going around deceiving people 1:08:51.520 --> 1:08:53.760 or certainly going around killing people in the night, but 1:08:53.880 --> 1:08:57.680 just how to create something that comes off as more human, right, 1:08:58.280 --> 1:09:00.240 I mean, it does sort of make you think that 1:09:00.760 --> 1:09:03.920 some of the same skills that are crucial for deception 1:09:04.120 --> 1:09:08.439 and constructing elaborate socialized for the people around us are 1:09:08.520 --> 1:09:12.240 the same skills that are good social lubricants and make 1:09:12.320 --> 1:09:14.120 us get along well with others. That would be a 1:09:14.160 --> 1:09:17.720 depressing finding, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's somewhat true. Yeah, 1:09:17.800 --> 1:09:22.559 this sort of thing is ultimately about creating chatbots for 1:09:22.600 --> 1:09:26.040 the future that feel more human when they're scamming you. Now, 1:09:26.040 --> 1:09:29.439 another presentation when we ran across UH from two thousand fourteen, 1:09:29.520 --> 1:09:34.000 and this was another I Tripoli International Conference UH presentation, 1:09:34.120 --> 1:09:40.080 and this was by Dasuki Katagami at all titled Investigation 1:09:40.240 --> 1:09:46.080 of the Effects of Nonverbal Information on Werewolf. Okay, and 1:09:46.400 --> 1:09:48.639 the wait, is this an AI werewolf or an AI 1:09:48.680 --> 1:09:53.200 werewolf detector? Um? It's the purpose of the research, they stated, 1:09:53.320 --> 1:09:58.000 was to develop an intelligent agent quote a werewolf, which 1:09:58.080 --> 1:10:01.000 is enabled to naturally play where a Wolf with humans. 1:10:01.320 --> 1:10:04.920 So it's it's all about machine learning. Their findings were 1:10:05.000 --> 1:10:08.320 quote we found that non verbal information in the game 1:10:08.360 --> 1:10:12.360 of where Wolf has importance to winning or losing the game, which, 1:10:13.200 --> 1:10:15.000 you know, it's kind of an overstatement of the obvious, 1:10:15.000 --> 1:10:17.280 I guess, but here we see it UH proven out 1:10:17.320 --> 1:10:22.320 in this this cool AI werewolf study. Now, people sitting 1:10:22.360 --> 1:10:27.040 at home might be thinking, why are we specifically training 1:10:27.200 --> 1:10:30.559 computers to be good at killing us in the night 1:10:30.600 --> 1:10:34.880 and getting away with it? Well, again, it's it's it's 1:10:34.880 --> 1:10:38.320 more that these are extreme versions of the skills that 1:10:38.360 --> 1:10:40.840 we use every day. You know. It comes down to 1:10:40.920 --> 1:10:44.840 that CEO analogy we made earlier. Uh, the average person 1:10:44.920 --> 1:10:48.879 is not engaging in in these in such titillating versions 1:10:48.920 --> 1:10:52.919 of social interaction, but we're engaging in varying lesser versions 1:10:53.000 --> 1:10:57.479 of them. Yeah, in the same way that you see, uh, 1:10:57.800 --> 1:11:01.080 animals wrestling at play and their children, you know, to 1:11:01.160 --> 1:11:04.120 sort of distill some of the main dynamics of physical 1:11:04.160 --> 1:11:07.320 struggle for survival. I guess this is sort of an 1:11:07.320 --> 1:11:11.960 adult version of wrestling with words and eye contact. Yeah, 1:11:12.080 --> 1:11:15.680 it's it's it's that it's that most primal of games, 1:11:16.120 --> 1:11:19.360 but done at the the abstract level, at the level 1:11:19.400 --> 1:11:22.799 of social interaction, rather than just rolling around on the ground. 1:11:22.960 --> 1:11:26.880 I'm glad you brought up the children, Joe, because there 1:11:26.920 --> 1:11:29.120 was I'm gonna mention real real quick here that there 1:11:29.200 --> 1:11:32.519 was an additional study I came across Werewolves, Cheats and 1:11:32.560 --> 1:11:36.240 Cultural Sensitivity by limb at All And this was a 1:11:36.280 --> 1:11:40.040 two thousand fourteen conference paper presented at Autonomous Agents and 1:11:40.120 --> 1:11:43.559 Multi Agent Systems. And this one was really cool because 1:11:43.560 --> 1:11:46.719 it basically boiled down to having children observed two different 1:11:46.800 --> 1:11:49.799 virtual games of Werewolf, so they're not playing there's watching 1:11:50.280 --> 1:11:52.639 right there. I think they used the term imaginary friend, 1:11:52.800 --> 1:11:54.960 like you're you're not a player, but you're these are 1:11:55.040 --> 1:11:58.479 real people supposedly playing and you're observing their game. And 1:11:58.479 --> 1:12:02.800 they use the version A inversion B have slightly different rules, 1:12:02.880 --> 1:12:07.960 so one version seems far more unfair, and so basically 1:12:08.040 --> 1:12:10.720 they were using the game is a way to to 1:12:10.880 --> 1:12:15.839 just look at cultural sensitivity or insensitivity and attempting to 1:12:15.840 --> 1:12:19.280 to model it. Uh, it's it's interesting though they said 1:12:19.320 --> 1:12:21.800 that it didn't work out all that well. The exercise 1:12:21.840 --> 1:12:25.439 actually caused the children to reinforce their view that the 1:12:25.560 --> 1:12:28.240 end group is correct and that the outgroup is incorrect, 1:12:28.320 --> 1:12:30.840 rather than seeing that there are different ways to go 1:12:30.920 --> 1:12:33.479 about it, different ways to play the game. I feel 1:12:33.479 --> 1:12:37.040 like that is a common dynamic I've come across multiple times, 1:12:37.120 --> 1:12:41.639 is that studies find some attempts to discourage toxic social 1:12:41.680 --> 1:12:45.080 cognition can often seem to reinforce it. It seems like 1:12:45.120 --> 1:12:48.360 something you've come across before. Yeah. Yeah, And of course 1:12:48.400 --> 1:12:50.560 it brings us back to Werewolf, because what is Werewolf 1:12:50.680 --> 1:12:55.080 but a game that looks at at at toxic social interactions. 1:12:56.120 --> 1:12:57.840 It's the only game where you get to have a 1:12:58.439 --> 1:13:01.800 vigilante mob that kills some bud every single day. That's right, 1:13:03.720 --> 1:13:06.160 all right, So there you have it now. Obviously, we 1:13:06.160 --> 1:13:09.160 would love to hear from everyone out there. Uh. Certainly 1:13:09.160 --> 1:13:11.360 newcomers to the game of Werewolf. If you listen to 1:13:11.400 --> 1:13:13.240 this episode and then you go out and try it 1:13:13.280 --> 1:13:16.639 for yourself, we would love for you to report back. However, 1:13:16.720 --> 1:13:19.080 if you've been playing this game for for years and 1:13:19.160 --> 1:13:22.920 years now, we obviously want to hear about about your 1:13:22.920 --> 1:13:27.000 favorite additional rules and maybe some even homebrew rules that 1:13:27.000 --> 1:13:29.400 you've come up with. Let us know about it. Give 1:13:29.479 --> 1:13:32.720 us your Werewolf tails or your mafia tales and uh 1:13:32.800 --> 1:13:34.880 and and and we'll chat with you about them. Here's 1:13:34.880 --> 1:13:36.920 what I want to hear. If you already have a 1:13:36.960 --> 1:13:40.120 Werewolf group that plays regularly, if you can find out 1:13:40.120 --> 1:13:43.479 a way to incorporate a RoboCop character class in a 1:13:43.520 --> 1:13:46.759 way that doesn't break the game and heightens the tension 1:13:46.800 --> 1:13:49.280 and makes it even more fun, right in, tell us 1:13:49.280 --> 1:13:52.080 about it, and we we guarantee we will read that 1:13:52.160 --> 1:13:54.840 on the air. All right, Hey, head on over to 1:13:54.840 --> 1:13:57.000 stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That is where 1:13:57.000 --> 1:14:00.160 you will find the landing page for this episode. We'll 1:14:00.160 --> 1:14:02.960 find all the past episodes, and you'll find links out 1:14:03.000 --> 1:14:05.920 to our various social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, 1:14:06.160 --> 1:14:09.200 and Instagram. And hey over on Facebook, that's where we 1:14:09.240 --> 1:14:12.479 have a group, the Facebook group Stuffed Toboll Your Mind 1:14:12.479 --> 1:14:15.240 Discussion module. Hop in there. That's a great place to 1:14:15.280 --> 1:14:19.559 have longer form discussions with other listeners and with the hosts. 1:14:19.840 --> 1:14:21.280 And if you want to get in touch with us 1:14:21.280 --> 1:14:25.519 directly as always the old fashioned way, the version that 1:14:25.600 --> 1:14:28.280 might be used by some medieval villagers conferring about how 1:14:28.320 --> 1:14:30.839 to kill a werewolf in their midst. You can email 1:14:30.960 --> 1:14:34.120 us at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot 1:14:34.160 --> 1:14:46.799 com for more on this and thousands of other topics. 1:14:46.960 --> 1:15:03.960 Does it how stuff works dot com? But I thought 1:15:10.200 --> 1:15:12.920 he im