Werewolf in our Game On! Games Class

Julie just wrote this tid-bit to me about our games class. I'm out of town on business all week so she's handling both classes, and we struggled a bit deciding what to do. We are nearing the end of the class and I hope to try Bohnanza but am still a bit concerned about complexity. We decided to pull out Werewolf and it was a smash hit:

Yup…Werewolf got 4’s across the board. And that’s after I tried to clean it up and give it an “E for Everyone” rating. I gave some background about how in the old days, people didn’t know as much about their world and when strange things happened, they often resorted to superstition. In the updated story, we said someone ‘disappeared’ in the night. Villagers woke up and had to blame someone since people don’t just disappear. They chose someone to lock in jail (not lynch). Once the round was over, I always went back to the werewolves (who weren’t really werewolves) and asked them why they were taking people. The explanations were cute – I was hungry and needed someone to cook for me, I was bored and we were playing games, etc. I think it was important to make the change. Even while playing this version, a couple in my group said it was scary since they had to close their eyes and they didn’t know if they’d be ‘taken away’. The more they played it, the better they were. I don’t think they fully understood my role as moderator at first (no one physically is taken anywhere, etc.). Both groups had a ball and didn’t even notice when it was 7:45 and time to leave. Awesome.