Almanac of Games for May 26th: Werewolf!

(Rooted out by Drew Davidson)

Red Scare

On May 26, 1938, the House Un-American Activities Committee (Wikipedia) was established by Congress to root out from the teeming masses all Communists and other undesirables. This committee led the way during a three decade-long witch hunt. (It was quietly renamed the “Internal Security Committee” in 1969.)

Rooting out the villain(s) from a horde of same-looking citizens is also the theme of the popular Party game, Werewolf. The parallels between that game and the Red Scare prompted one gamer to devise a variation inspired by the Cold War.

In 2006, Board Game Geek user ithicks codified a set of rules that brought Werewolf into the 1950s America. New roles include: Communist; KGB Agent; FBI Agent; News Reporter; Patriot and Citizens. If you like partying with the wolves, check out his posts and give this variation a try!

BTW, the Ulimate Werewolf set includes just 3 blank cards, so if you own it or want to buy it, you can just use index cards to assign roles for this variation.

ultimate werewolf

  • Drew is a contributor to the Board Gamers Anonymous podcast. He's a curator by nature, compulsively reading and obsessively organizing what he's read. He's also been a gamer since the age of 3, which means he's been playing board games for... let's just say more than 40 years, and leave it at that...

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