Oh no, bad guys are here. Let's kill people to get rid of them.​

Witchhunt Rules KS EDITION

Preface: Witchhunt does not accommodate bastard modding. No false or misleading information should ever presented in-game to players, nor should any details about the rules or mechanics be withheld.​

Overview

Witchhunt is a game in which two factions each seek to control their town by killing off the other: The Villagers and the Witches. There are fewer members of the Witch team, but their identities are secret. Whichever team successfully kills all of their opponents wins.

The game continuously marches through a daily cycle split into two phases: day and night. The length of each game’s cycle can vary; a real life game might take 10 minutes for each day and night, while a forum game might take a full week. Each phase has an announced deadline, at which point the game automatically transitions to the next phase.

During night, players may not make public discussion and any actions taken are private from other living players. Each night, the Coven of Witches selects a target to kill.

This kill is announced at the start of the next day. During day, living players may make open discussion and decide on a target of their own to hang. Any living player may vote for any other living player, and a true majority (more than half) is required to hang.

During this discussion, it may prove important to conceal information or lie. There is no restriction to what players can say or claim! Lies are normally weapons of the Witch team, but anyone can say anything in pursuit of their team’s victory.

Note that unlike some other games, there is no "card flip" (announcement of the player's identity) on death! Which team they were working for remains a mystery!

The game ends when one side has completely eliminated the other, or when this is inevitable. (For example, Witches typically win when at least half the remaining players are Witches, because it is then impossible for Villagers to out-vote and hang them.)

Player Assignments (Character and Type)

Each player is given two assignments: a unique character, and a non-unique type.

Unique characters provide every player with a special, unique ability of some sort. These abilities may be offensive or defensive, mechanical or informational. Powers granted by your character only apply while you are alive.

Player type is separate from character, and determines what team the player is on.

Village Player Types:

Villager - This is the most common player type. Villagers are simply trying to hunt down the Witches and use their character to help the Village do so.

Holy Villager - The most powerful characters are considered “holy” and have gold cards. These characters are reserved for the Holy Villagers, and cannot be any other player type.
(Holy Villagers have no other unique function besides getting a reserved character that is always Village aligned.)

Witch Player Types:

Witch - Witches start in the Coven. They know each other from the start of the game, and vote as a group in the Witch Coven each night to kill a target. They may also communicate with each other at all times.

Remember: Holy characters aside, any characters can be any player type - Villager or Witch!
​

Important Information

The Characters

Holy​

Priest - Each night, you may check if a target is in the Witch Coven.

Acolyte - At the start of the game, you learn who has the Priest character.

Information​

Gravedigger - At the start of each night, you learn the cards of anyone who died that day.

Apprentice - At the start of the game, you may select Judge or Gravedigger. You will learn who has that
character, and take over their duties if they die.

Oracle - At the start of the game, you learn the identity of a random Village Peasant.

Inquisitor - Each night, you may check a target's character category (Holy, offense, defense or information)

Peeping Tom - Once per game, you may observe the private actions of any non-holy character. If that character is dead, you may make decisions in their place. (not in use)

Defense​

Survivalist - You start the game with an extra life.

Gambler - At the start of the game, pick even or odd. On those nights (but not days), you are protected from a kill.

Fanatic - When the Priest checks you, you are secretly notified and gain an extra life.

Benevolent Old Dame - Once per game when your death is announced, you may give a target other than yourself an extra life. (not in use)

Nurse - Once per game during any day, you may reveal this card and name any non-holy character. If that character is still alive, they gain an extra life.

Offense​

Judge - At the end of any day the players fail to select a target to hang, you may privately decide yourself. This ignores extra lives.

Hunter - The first time a player survives being killed, you may kill a target the following night.

Loose Cannon - During any day (before time is up), you may reveal this card. Sacrifice yourself to end the day and personally decide who to hang.

Assassin - Once per game during any day (before time is up), you may reveal this card and guess the character of a target. If correct, the target is killed. If incorrect, you are killed.

Dirty Old Bastard - Once per game when your death is announced, you may kill a target.

The Witches

In addition to their roles, Witches have a few extra tricks that they can use during the game.

The last living member of the Witch team may kill up to two different targets each night.

Once per game, Witches may make an Illusion Kill instead of or in addition to their usual kill(s). The target of an Illusion Kill always survives, so use this later in the game to confuse the town!


Dead Players

Dead players may no longer communicate or vote with living players. They also may no longer utilize their character abilities. Dead players may communicate with each other freely, and watch the game unfold.

However, dead players are NOT eliminated from the game! Instead they continue to serve their side as an Angel or Demon.

Please note that while dead, players observe all actions made, or information gained by all players. For example, at the end of a typical night, dead players might learn

1. The players in the coven & their kill target.
2. The priest and his check target.
3. That the fanatic was checked and now has an extra life.

If there are only dead players from a single group (Angels or Demons), then only that group will learn the info for that phase.

Angels and Demons

All dead Villagers are Angels and all dead Witches are Demons.

Each night, the Demons may pick two targets to Haunt. If the Priest checks either haunted target that night, he will receive the result for the other target instead! Note that to allow Angels to react appropriately to any Hauntings, the Haunt targets must be chosen by the halfway point of each night.

Second, the Angels may vote as a group to protect any player from a kill that night. This will protect the chosen player from a single kill that night (from any source)

Angels can protect any player as many times as they want.

However, there are two restrictions to this: if they protect one of the two players haunted by the Demons, they can never protect that target again, and Angels may only protect a haunted target if there are more Angels than Demons.

In other words, the Angels can stand in the Witches' way, but the Demons can stand in the Angels' way; all in layers of dares and bluffs!

Additionally, once per game, the Angels may protect two targets.

QUESTIONS
How does protection work exactly?

Things that give protection are worded 'protected from a kill', meaning they protect from a single kill that night. Protection does stack, so if you have two sources of protection (say you are the Gambler and Angels target you), it would take three kills in one night to kill you.

Also note that all kill attempts are made public, so if someone were to survive one kill, but die to a second that would be revealed upon day start. Similarly if someone is killed twice in the same night, that would be shown at the start of day.​

When does the DOB / BOD go off?

All deaths are announced during DAY, so the DOB / BOD kill or +life always occur during day.​

How are night actions resolved?

First, Demons choose their Haunt targets, then all non kill actions are resolved, then all kills are resolved. This means that nothing is interrupted or otherwise impeded by the target or recipient of an action being killed in the night.​

Voting and Deadlines

Roles that reveal their card for an effect during the day (such as Nurse or Assassin) extend the day by 24 hours, at the moderators discretion. This is to stop degenerate strategies such as 'use your power immediately before day end to prevent a reaction'.

During the day, living players may post in this thread and vote to lynch a target. Please make your votes:

Bold and red and on a new line.

You may change votes at any time during the day.

At the end of the day's deadline, if a player has a majority of votes, that player is lynched. If no player has a majority, or a majority of players vote to no lynch, the decision defers to the Judge. The Judge's identity remains private, and the result is announced. If the Judge is dead or declines Judgment, no one is lynched.

The number of votes that constitute a majority will be clearly posted at the start of each day.

Ending the day early requires an unanimous-minus-one vote count.

Votals will be posted with alarming irregularity.

Queued Actions

Roles that immediate game decision at the start or end of a phase (such as Judge, DOB, BOD) need to have their desired action queued with the moderator - this is to allow the game to run smoothly, as (for example) needing to wait for the Judge to check-in and decide who to lynch after a No-Lynch day could take many hours.

Additionally, players may have to be away from a computer when they would desire to make critical game decisions. Players can work with the moderator in advance to easily address these circumstances.

If you are AFK and want to queue an action related to your role, post it in your QT. (In <b>bold</b>, using HTML tags) You cannot queue votes except in extraordinary cases.


Behavior Rules

These rules help keep the game fun for everyone. Based on the seriousness of the violation, breaking these rules may result in a warning, in-place mod-kill, forced-lynch mod-kill, team forfeit, and/or a ban from participating in future game.

1. No Duplicate Account
You cannot register for the game under multiple accounts. This is the most serious violation possible.

2. No Private Communications
Except for QTs designated within the game, no private communications with another player about the game are allowed. (Including but not limited to forum PMs.) Be extremely cautious about talking about the game in a public setting that other players might see, or talking to non-players who might also talk to other players. If a non-player shares your private information with another player, that is a rules violation on you regardless of your intent.

3. No Dead-Living Player Communication
Dead players may not communicate with living players in any meaningful way about the game, outside of what is explicitly allowed in the rules in the rules.

4. No Encryption
Encryption is using a specific key to conceal information in text (which may or may not appear to conceal a hidden message), and communicating that key or part of it (including decryption instructions) to other players. (Private or public, before or after) Avoid explicitly declaring unique and unusual significance to non-content such as character ordering, post counts, or voting patterns. Anything that goes beyond irony and is a deliberate attempt to communicate is off-limits.

5. No Private Moderator Quoting
The moderator will try to make all communications in the public discussion, privately according to the publicly available script, or privately with yes or no responses. However, unforeseen circumstances do occur: The moderator might explicitly designate specific private communications as unquoteable. Do not quote or otherwise acknowledge these messages to other players, if they occur.

6. No Forum Abuse (No Edits, No Likes)
This forum has certain features that are undesireable for a smooth game, that we require players to ignore. Do not edit your posts. Do not "thumbs-up" posts. Do not "like" then "unlike" posts. Do not stalk the online forum status of players that have it enabled on their profile.

7. No Text Dumping
Do not post (in the public discussion or a QT) non-public material that is copied verbatim from another player, or written yourself more than 2 full game cycles ago. Additionally, do not copy timestamps.

8. No Personal Attacks
Above all, don't be a giant douchecanoe. Don't be a little douchecanoe. Don't be any size of douchecanoe.

 

In it to win it.

For Town. Obvs.

 

/in

/tenchar

 

Gimme the business.

 

/In

And hello everyone.

 

/obs

/10

 

I'm in too.

 

Pick me, coach!

 

/in

I will roll Holy this time.

 

How did everyone already

/IN

?!

 

gotta go fast

 

/In

Need avenge myself after getting lynched for the first time

 

And I will live long enough to lynch Waco.

 

Uh-uh, I'm outliving you this time.

 

I will try to kill you both in the same night as the last witch.

 

After the last game I might've have earned a Nk from you, sorry about that.

 

Is there an obs?

 

/in

Let me make sure to build tinfoil hat worlds this time so I don't get steamrolled.

 

Killing me n1? someone has to die and you had your reasons, so i didnt mind.

I prefer living over dying in the end, most of the time.

 

I'll take a shot at it