Have you ever played Werewolf?

Yes, that party game where the whole point is to figure out who the werewolves are before all the villagers get wiped out.

If not, I’ll leave you with this video where Lena Mahfouf hosts a giant round with her friends — it’ll give you the vibe.

And since we’re here to talk about business, marketing, and strategy, you might be wondering: why the hell am I starting with a late-night party game?

Bear with me — you won’t regret it.

If you don’t know the rules, here’s a quick reminder:

Prepare a deck of cards, one for each player, with a role written on each. 

• One “Moderator”
• Two “Werewolves”
• One “Villager (Seer)”
• All the others are “Villagers”

Shuffle the cards and deal them face down. Each player must look at their card but keep it secret. Only the moderator reveals their card and announces themselves as the moderator.

Two players are now secretly werewolves. Their goal: to massacre all the villagers (charming, right?).

The game alternates between “night” and “day” phases.

At night, everyone closes their eyes. The moderator invites the werewolves to open theirs and asks them to silently choose someone to kill. Once they’ve chosen, the werewolves close their eyes again.

Next, the Seer opens their eyes to choose someone to question. They silently point to a player, and the moderator nods or shakes their head depending on whether that player is a werewolf. The Seer then closes their eyes again. 

Then comes the day phase: everyone opens their eyes. The moderator announces who has been killed, and that player reveals their card.

Now comes the time for revenge: once a majority agrees on the death of a player, the moderator validates the decision and that player reveals their card.

There are no restrictions on speech during this part of the game. Any living player can say whatever they want: the truth, red herrings, absurdities, or outright lies.

The Story of a Stolen Game

Werewolf wasn’t always called that. In fact, this game — which today is sold commercially — was first made freely available for personal use (and still is, right here).

Dmitry Davidoff created the game Mafia in 1987 as part of his psychology research at Moscow University. I won’t go too deep into the details, but the aim of the game was mainly to force players to accept their mistakes.

In that sense, Mafia models a conflict between an informed minority and an uninformed majority, creating what’s called an “information asymmetry” within an imaginary setting — the City. Kevin Slavin, in his Cnet article “Why Do Young Techies Want to Be Werewolves?” (McCarthy, 2009), called Mafia “a game with an interplay between information and social dynamics.”

The game was quickly picked up and transformed: from Mafia it became the Werewolf we know today. However, the current distributors of the game don’t actually hold a commercial license, as its creator reminded in an interview:

FH: Does “Les Loups-garous de Thiercelieux” and “Lupus in Tabula” have a licence for commercial use of Mafia?
DD: These games do not have a license. Companies who produced them […] intentionally mislead their customers about the origins of the game. These companies took my game, invented a bogus story about its origins, and make profits while selling it […].

What Werewolf Reveals About Our Interactions

As Kevin Slavin, quoted above, points out, this game shows us how the information we have (or don’t have) directly shapes our social dynamics. The game pits a poorly informed majority (the villagers) against an informed minority (the werewolves).

What’s interesting is that the game tends to highlight behaviors that are characteristic of our societies. Although it’s often played “lightheartedly,” there are also official competitions, online forums, and new variations that keep emerging from these player communities — which in turn add complexity to the roles and reproduce very specific behaviors we know from real-world societies.

“Mafia’s resonance is with some of the worst, but most universal, traits of human society. Every culture has had its witch-hunts and pogroms, and anxiety about being caught on the wrong side of persecution is a fear that crosses borders, languages and eras. Mafia, in its abstract, trivial way, lets us play with those fears.” — Wired (Robertson, 2010)

The game has been a clear success among “tech” and “geek” communities in Silicon Valley. On one hand, because the simplicity of the rules reminds them of elegantly written code. On the other, because the interactions between players mirror the ones that play out during fundraising rounds, negotiations, and other situations that shape the development of their startups.

Werewolf reminds us that when we lack information, we can easily be manipulated by a person or group who has more than we do. And it also shows that when it comes to protecting their own interests, a group will be willing to deploy every strategy available — even the worst ones.

Should We Hunt the Werewolves?

I think it’s pretty clear that the political and socio-economic climate we live in pushed me to bring up this subject. Although, if you think about it, it’s always been relevant.

Power dynamics, persuasion, control of information — these have been at the heart of our History. Except today, information is accessible. Fast. Massive. Constant.

The werewolves are everywhere, and you might even be working for them without realizing it. I don’t say this to sound alarmist or conspiratorial. My point is simply this: whenever we share information impulsively, carried away by emotion, without checking the source of the person who shared it before us (often someone we trust — which is precisely why we don’t question it), we sometimes end up spreading messages that actually serve the werewolves.

When I see messages being amplified out of anger — something I myself often do — I’m always left uneasy. For example: I used to regularly share the running count of femicides without ever verifying the numbers. I was too horrified to imagine that false information could circulate about something so tragic. Only later, after digging deeper, did I realize that yes — even here, some people manipulate data. For a cause I know is just, but with methods that risk harming it.

I intentionally chose an example from activist circles I know, where I move, that I’ve studied and lived through. My intention is not, of course, to harm the feminist movement — far from it. Only to show you that I try, as best I can, to strip away my own biases. It would have been too easy to point out that the far right makes werewolves proliferate…

Unfortunately, I have to admit that even among the causes closest to my heart, werewolves are hiding. I think being aware of this is a strength — and it forces me to be uncompromising about the information I consume and share.

I will never launch into a witch hunt, for several reasons. First, because I think history has shown us, time and again, that they never end well. And second, because I believe it’s more relevant to ask ourselves how to avoid becoming a werewolf ourselves, rather than shooting blindly and hoping there won’t be too many collateral victims.

How Not to Become a Werewolf Yourself

I am deeply convinced that cultivating personal responsibility for the words we relay is the real solution. If every villager does their part and checks their sources, then the whispers of the werewolves will become less and less effective — until the werewolves are forced to retreat to where they came from, tails between their legs.

We must not give in to anger, but instead rely on facts, on proof, and repeat them calmly, until the wolves’ howls are drowned out by the buzzing of the villagers.

I believe it is everyone’s responsibility to get properly informed. It is also our collective duty, as a society, to hold the media accountable — because they are the guardians of information.

What does this have to do with your business?

Well, as an entrepreneur, I don’t want to become a werewolf — someone who withholds information and thinks they’re fighting the villagers. I want to be the kind of person people want to collaborate with, because they know I will treat them as equals.

I want to be an example of transparency, because I am convinced that it is one of the best ways to get the most out of our collaborations. Whether professional or not.