SELECT id, count(*) as n
FROM table_name
GROUP BY id
HAVING n > 1


“I understand, Ban-shu,” Rek replied, using the shaman’s proper title. “Both my father and master Xioshan believes it is time for me to undertake this task. That my destiny lies at the end.”
“And what of your family, and your duties here among our people?” the shaman asked, raising an eyebrow. Gorsk had been expecting Rek’s father to suggest such an idea, but not the clan’s gu-ron, master of ink and steel. Master Xioshan was old, even by the shaman’s reckoning, and wise in his years.
“My wives will be well cared for by my brother-husband,” Rek answered, forehead still almost touching the dirt floor. “My father is still young, and should anything happen, he still has my older brothers.” Rek raised his head from the ground and stared the shaman in the eye. “Tzai is not my place now.”
“We cannot keep you from undertaking the orzu, Rek, nor would we want to,” Gorsk said. “We only wish to make sure you know the consequences of your actions. If you still wish to undertake the orzu, present yourself at Gu Hash Kinnuth at dusk, three nights hence, and we shall ask the spirits to guide your first steps. Be prepared.” Once again, Rek bowed his head to the ground before answering.
“As you say, Ban-shu.”

A few years back I came across some carols a bit more tolerable. Read on for some amusing parodies of songs I’m sure you’ll hear dozens, if not scores, of times in the upcoming months.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Cultist

Rudolph the Red Nosed Cultist
had a few insanities
and if you ever saw him
he’ll be chanting with great glee
Cthulhu fthagn Ia – aa
He is sleeping ‘neath the foam
as he stared out the window
through the bars where he made his home
Then one foggy moon streaked eve
Cthulhu came to say
Rudolph with your mind so brave
won’t you be my eternal slave
then all the other cultists
join Rudolph the mighty high priest
has joined Cthulhu in his lair.

Over the River and through the Woods

Over the River and through the Woods
To the Plateau of Leng we go
We hope that someday
we can finally say
that we saw the god on the slooo ope

Over the River and through the Woods
To Kadath so cold we go
Nightgaunts pull the sleigh
to hurry their way
past the Shantaks O, we hooo-ope

Over the River and through the Woods
I fear that we’ve gone too far
the Gods don’t condone
a mortal at home
farewell those who listened this far……

The Carol of the Old Ones

lyrics by A.H. Leman to the tune of Carol of the Bells by M. Leontovich

Look to the sky way up on high
There in the nigh stars now are right
Eons have passed now then at last
Whence They were penned They will descend

They will retun mankind will learn
New kinds of fear once They are here
As They reclaim all in Their name
Watch only can powerless man

Ignorant fools mankind now rules
Where They ruled then it’s Theirs again
Madness will reign terror and pain
Woes without ry scary scary scary Solstice
Very very very scary Solstice

Up from the sea from underground
Down from the sky They’re all around
They will retun mankind will learn
New kinds of fear when They are here

They will return

(followed by a glorious arrangement of four part harmonies.)

O Come All Ye Deep Ones

Lyrics by A.H. Leman to the tune of “O Come All Ye Faithful” by John Reading

O come all ye Deep Ones,
Mi-Go, Ghouls and Nightgaunhts;
Come foul Shub Niggurath and all Ancient Ones.
Come Great Cthulhom the ocean.

CHORUS
O come, let us abhor them,
O come, let us abhor them,
O come, let us abhor them,
Scream, run and hide.

Their old dominion
Mankind now rules blithely,
Stars turning overhead to bring forth his doom.
They will return here, greedy and malevolent.

CHORUS

Great Old Ones Are Coming to Town

You’d better watch out; you better go hide.
And Elder Sign’s needed for this Yuletide
Great Old Ones are comin to town.nd shaking it twice.
They’re going to hit you, naughty or nice.
Great Old Ones are coming to town.

They’re bringing ugly Shuggoths,
And horrid Deep Ones too,
Shub Niggurath is waking up
And so is Cthulhu

So you better watch out, you’d better go ‘way,
Before the big guy comes up from R’lyeh.
Great Old Ones are coming to town.

The Solstice Song

Victims roasting on an open fire,
Deep Ones ripping off your nose,
Mindless chanting ’round the funeral pyre
And folks strung up by their toes.
Ev’rybody knows how festive open wounds can be;
You’ll go crazy at the sight.
Tiny tots with their eyeballs aglow
Will find it hard to sleep tonight.
They know Cthulhu’s on his way;
The beast is rising from the depths of dark R’lyeh.
And ev’ry mother’s child is gonna cry
And beg for mercy and pray quickly to die.
And so I’m offering this simple phrase
To kids from one to ninety two;
Although its been said many times, many ways,
“Barra na zu absu.”

Azathoth

sung to Jingle BellsAzathoth
Azathoth
Azathoth, the King
Center of the Universe,
Insanity he brings, Hey!

Azathoth
Azathoth
Azathoth, the King
Center of the Universe
Insanity he brings

Writhing round the place
Insane pipers pipe
Takes up lots of space
The stars are getting ripe

R’Lyeh soon may rise
Nyarlathotep plots
Earth will be the prize
We’ll all lose our spots, Ohhh

Azathoth
Azathoth
Azathoth, the King
Center of the Universe
IN – SANITY HEEEE BRIIIIIIIINGS!!!!!!!!!

1. Entertainment
2. Reference
3. Application

Entertainment

Entertainment sites encompass not only games and jokes, but also a majority of blogs and also news sites. The purpose of these sites are to bring in users and give them news or entertainment that brings them back to keep up with the site. Users often browse these sites for interesting bits of information or interaction and return to them to see if there are updates to the sites content. The main key to the popularity for these sites is new and interesting content, be they blog posts, video games, comic strips, or news articles. Boring content is ignored as are infrequently updated sites (though the latter can be compensated to a degree with exceptional content and RSS/Atom feeds).

Reference

Reference sites, while not only include sites like dictionaries and Wikipedia, but also include search engine. The main purpose for a reference site is be a repository on information on a facet of information. Users are more likely to search than browse on these sites and almost exclusively come to them only when they are looking for specific information. Unlike entertainment sites, they do not think of these sites as places to go to just to see what’s new. A reference site’s claim to repeat usage is current, accurate information that is easy to find that covers as much of the site’s region of specialty.

Applications

Applications are sites whose purpose is to give users tools for their lives or jobs. The suite of tools from 37 Signals, GMail, or flickr. The key to these site’s popularity is the niche they fill (i.e. does anyone actually need this functionality) and the interface to said functionality (i.e. I want to use this, but can I figure out how).

What I’m Missing

There are sites have different segments that fall into different genres, as well as some sites that could be considered crossovers, such as some (usually technical) blogs that can be mined for reference information but also cover news in their sphere of interest to keep users coming back.

The one type of site that confuses me is social networking sites. Are they Entertainment or Application or, like the blogs referenced above, are they a fusion of the two?

Why it matters

If you understand ahead of time the type of site you are trying to be before you put it together and keep in mind the what brings a user to that type of site as well as what the normal usage habits for that type of site are (i.e. how the user will expect to interact with it), you can build your site to make use of those preconceptions and usage patterns to make the experience more enjoyable for its eventual users. Sites that try to lump in bits of each genre or expect users to interact with their reference site like an entertainment site will confuse and alienate the user.

This is the failure I feel of the current organization I work for in that instead of focusing on their sites as reference sites and rolling out an integrated entertainment site for news and updates, they are expecting users to view their site as in entertainment site which pretty much all research says is not how the site is viewed or used. In turn, it makes it harder for the user to find information they want and also makes it much more difficult for the organization to communication news and information to the user.

Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.

I read the examination question: “SHOW HOW IT IS POSSIBLE TO DETERMINE THE HEIGHT OF A TALL BUILDING WITH THE AID OF A BAROMETER.”

The student had answered, “Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building.” The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and to certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this.

I suggested that the student have another try. I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on.

In the next minute, he dashed off his answer which read: “Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^^2, calculate the height of the building.” At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded,and gave the student almost full credit.

While leaving my colleague”s office, I recalled that the student had said that he had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were.

“Well,” said the student, “there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building,and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building.”

“Fine,” I said, “and others?”

“Yes,” said the student, “there is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in barometer units.”

“A very direct method.”

“Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of g at the street level and at the top of the building. From the difference between the two values of g, the height of the building,in principle, can be calculated.”

“On this same tact, you could take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street, and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession.”

“Finally,” he concluded, “there are many other ways of solving the problem. Probably the best,” he said, “is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent”s door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: ”Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer.”

At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think.

The student was Neils Bohr.

Werewolf

A Mind Game

also called “Mafia”

Werewolf is a simple game for a large group of people (seven or more.) It requires no equipment besides some bits of paper; you can play it just sitting in a circle. I’d call it a party game, except that it’s a game of accusations, lying, bluffing, second-guessing, assassination, and mob hysteria.I really like it. But then I go to some strange parties.

• The Rules
  • Setting Up
  • The Game: Night and Day
  • Winning
  • In Case It’s Not Totally Clear
  • Technical Notes
• Possible Variations
• History
• Commercial Editions of Werewolf

The Rules

Setting Up

Assemble a group of players. An odd number is best, although not absolutely mandatory. There should be at least seven players; nine or eleven is better.Make up a set of cards, one for each player, with a role written on each one:

• One “Moderator”
• Two “Werewolf”
• One “Villager (Seer)”
• All the rest “Villager”

Shuffle the cards and hand them out, face down. Each player should look at his card, but must keep it secret. Only the moderator reveals his card and shows himself to be the moderator.(Alternatively, the group can choose a moderator in advance; the moderator then takes the “Moderator” card, shuffles the rest, and hands them out face-down.)

Two players are now secretly werewolves. They are trying to slaughter everyone in the village. Everyone else is an innocent human villager; but one of the villagers secretly has the Second Sight, and can detect the taint of lycanthropy.

The Game: Night and Day

The game proceeds in alternating night and day phases. We begin with Night.At Night, the moderator tells all the players “Close your eyes.” Everyone should.

The moderator says “Werewolves, open your eyes.” The two werewolves do so, and look around to recognize each other. The moderator should also note who the werewolves are.

The moderator says “Werewolves, pick someone to kill.” The two werewolves silently agree on one villager to tear limb from limb. (It is critical that they remain silent. The other players are sitting there with their eyes closed, and the werewolves don’t want to give themselves away. Sign language is appropriate, or just pointing, nodding, raising eyebrows, and so on.)

When the werewolves have agreed on a victim, and the moderator understands who they picked, the moderator says “Werewolves, close your eyes.”

The moderator says “Seer, open your eyes. Seer, pick someone to ask about.” The seer opens his eyes and silently points at another player. (Again, it is critical that this be entirely silent — because the seer doesn’t want to reveal his identity to the werewolves.)

The moderator silently signs thumbs-up if the seer pointed at a werewolf, and thumbs-down if the seer pointed at an innocent villager. The moderator then says “Seer, close your eyes.”

The moderator says “Everybody open your eyes; it’s daytime. And you have been torn apart by werewolves.” He indicates the person that the werewolves chose. That person is immediately dead and out of the game. He reveals his card, showing what he was, and leaves it face-up.

Now it is Day. Daytime is very simple; all the living players gather in the village and lynch somebody. The mob wants bloody justice.

As soon as a majority of players vote for a particular player to die, the moderator says “Ok, you’re dead.” That player then reveals his card, and the rest of the players find out whether they’ve lynched a human, a werewolf, or (oops!) the seer.

There are no restrictions on speech. Any living player can say anything he wants — truth, misdirection, nonsense, or bareface lie.

Contrariwise, dead players may not speak at all. As soon as the sun comes up and the moderator indicates that someone is dead, he may not speak for the rest of the game. No dying soliloquies allowed. Similarly, as soon as a majority vote indicates that a player has been lynched, he is dead. If he wants to protest his innocence or reveal some information (like the seer’s visions), he has to do it before the vote goes through.

No player may reveal his card, to anyone, except when he is killed. All you can do is talk.

Once a player is lynched, night falls and the cycle repeats. Everyone closes their eyes, the werewolves (or werewolf) secretly select someone to kill, the seer (if alive) secretly learns another player’s status; then the sun rises, one player is found dead, and the remaining players begin to discuss another lynching. Repeat until one side wins.

Winning

The humans win if they kill both werewolves.The werewolves win if they kill enough villagers so that the numbers are even. (Two werewolves and two humans, or one werewolf and one human.) At that point they can rise up and slaughter the villagers openly.

In Case It’s Not Totally Clear

The villagers are trying to figure out who’s a werewolf; the werewolves are pretending to be villagers, and trying to throw suspicion on real villagers.The seer is trying to throw suspicion on any werewolves he discovers, but without revealing himself to be the seer (because if he does, the werewolves will almost certainly kill him that night, since he’s the greatest threat to werewolf national security.) Of course the seer can reveal himself at any time, if he thinks it’s worthwhile to tell the other players what he’s learned. Also of course, a werewolf can claim to be the seer and “reveal” anything he wants.

The only information the villagers have is what other players say — and who dies. Accusing someone of being a werewolf is suspicious. Not accusing anyone is also suspicious. Agreeing with another player a lot is suspicious, and therefore so is pretending not to agree with another player. Never voting to kill a particular player is very suspicious for both of them — unless it’s the seer who knows that player is innocent.

Technical Notes

When everyone closes their eyes at night, it is best for people to also start humming, tapping the table, rocking back and forth, or some such noise. This will cover up any accidental sounds that are made by the werewolves, the seer, or the moderator.The moderator should stick to the script to avoid mistakes or clues. If he says “Open your eyes, werewolves” instead of “Werewolves, open your eyes,” a player may misconstrue the command before the last word.

The moderator should be careful to always talk towards the center of the group. If (for example) he turns to face the seer when he says “Seer, select someone,” the werewolves may detect the change in acoustics.

It is really important that dead players not speak, and the moderator not speak outside his official capacity — even to correct a blatant misstatement about a matter of record. (I’ve seen a game where one player — a werewolf — recited the history of the game up to that point: “X was murdered, then we lynched Y, then Z was murdered…” And he swapped two names, a night-murder and a day-lynching, to confuse matters. It would be unfair for a dead player to say “Hey, that’s not right, I was lynched!”)

There are several reasons to have an odd number of players (including the moderator): There will be an odd number of living players during each day, which prevents tie votes on lynchings; and the game will always end with a lynching. If there are an even number of players, you can get ties, and the game will end with a nighttime murder — which is anticlimactic, because everyone knows when the sun goes down that the game will end at dawn. (Because the werewolves are certain to kill a human and win.)

But more importantly, the humans’ chances are significantly weaker when there are an even number of players (including the moderator.) (See statistics.) This is probably because an even game always ends with a nighttime murder, and an extra murder is always to the advantage of the wolves; whereas an extra daytime lynching could help either side.

This game can produce a lot of shouting (during the day) and a lot of humming (at night.) Don’t play where the neighbors will complain. (“Don’t mind us, we’re just deciding who to kill!”)

My cards are cheesy cartoons (smiley faces, smiley faces with fangs, and a smiley face with a third eye.) Some of my friends have made decks out of selected Magic cards, X-Files cards, and other card games with neat art.

Danny Novo has contributed a PDF file of Werewolf cards, after my cheesy cartoon idea.

I have done some statistical simulations of the game, mostly to figure out when to add a third werewolf. (Seventeen players looks right.)

Possible Variations

• When the seer secretly points to a player at night, the moderator says out loud ”Yes, that’s a werewolf” or “No, that’s not a werewolf.” (Avoid “he” and “she”!) The other players still don’t know who was pointing or who was pointed at, but they do know what the answer was. If it was “yes”, the werewolves know the pressure is on…
• Don’t use a “Moderator” card; instead, put in one more “Villager” card. Then have an extra Day phase at the beginning, where the lynched player becomes the moderator. Advantage: Everyone gets to introduce themselves and start casting suspicion around, based on no information whatsoever. (Since it’s before the first night, not even the werewolves know who each other are!) Disadvantage: It’s possible for the moderator to be a werewolf or seer, which starts one side off with a handicap.
• Instead of passing out cards randomly, choose a moderator first, and then let the moderator decide who will be what. The moderator passes out cards as he pleases. (This might be fun if the group has played a lot of games together (not necessarily Werewolf) and know what it’s like for different people to team up. If the group is new to Werewolf, I wouldn’t recommend this variation.)
• Instead of everyone making noise at night, everyone is as quiet as possible, and they listen for the sounds of pointing. (I feel this pollutes the pure brain-ness of the game. You should cast suspicion on each others’ arguments, not on whether they can sign silently. But some people do play this way.)
• If there are a whole lot of players — say, seventeen — it might be better to add a third werewolf. I have not experimented with this, so I don’t know. Of course at that point it’s also possible to split into two separate games.
• If the number of players is even, you can give the villagers an advantage by granting the seer a free inquiry, letting the werewolves recognize each other, and then starting with a day-phase. (Or, equivalently, start with a night but don’t let the werewolves attack that first night.) This keeps the parity normal. It’s hard to quantify the advantage of a free inquiry, since it’s entirely psychological, but at least you don’t have an entirely information-free first day.
• If the number of players is small, or even, perhaps improve the villagers’ chances by giving one of them wolfsbane? The villager with wolfsbane cannot be killed by wolves; if he is picked, the moderator announces “It’s dawn… nobody was killed last night.” Of course, the herb is no protection from lynching. Disadvantage: this screws up the parity, so some games won’t end with a lynching. (This is a very speculative variant, and needs a lot of playtesting before it can be recommended.)
• A variant from Princeton: one villager has wolfsbane, but he chooses which doorstep to sprinkle every night. (He can choose himself.) If he picks the same person the wolves pick, that person doesn’t die. If he picks a wolf, nothing happens. Disadvantages: again, this screws up the parity. Also, if the last two players are a wolf and the wolfsbane-owner, the game is a stalemate. (Hm — that’s the result that was described to me, but it doesn’t necessarily follow. You could say that since the wolf-team has equal numbers, they win by daytime massacre, and the herb doesn’t help.)
• “Dark City”: At night, the werewolves get to swap two villager cards (thus possibly changing the identity of the seer). Ideally, when a villager dies, it should not be revealed whether or not he was the seer.
• “Cupid”: One villager is also the Cupid. At the start of the game, he secretly indicates two others players. These players are now a pair of Lovers. (The moderator taps the Lovers on the shoulder, and has them open their eyes and see each other. So the Lovers know who each other are, and the Cupid knows who they are — but none of them know (initially) whether the Lovers are human, wolves, or one of each.) Now: if one Lover dies (day or night), the other dies immediately of a broken heart. Furthermore: if the Lovers are the only two people left alive, even if one is a human and one is a wolf, they both win. (“Ours is a forbidden love.” — Willow)
• Adam Cadre came up with a version that avoids the closed eyes, the humming and tapping, etc; the only hidden behavior is writing. All players write on a notecard at night. The moderator collects the cards and works out the results. Villagers write “sleep”. The wolves can write a list of names of people to kill, in order of preference; if there is no consensus, one particular wolf (the alpha wolf) gets his wish. The moderator writes seer results on the seer’s card before returning the cards. This scheme eliminates wolf conferring, but it may work better for some groups — it eliminates the risk (and temptation) of peeking.
• A friend has reported another name for the game: “Seduction”, where two seducers try to deflower all the virgins before they’re caught, with a gossip peeking. Every day the virgins go out and… arrange a tryst with one of their number? Send someone to a brothel? Ok, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
• Jake Eakle describes a live-action version. Everyone has a sheet of paper on his dorm-room door; wolves choose their targets by drawing a red X on the door at night. (Actual night!) Other symbols get used for seer probes, etc.
• A version called “Thing” (as in, “who goes there?”). In this, the villagers don’t lynch — they choose someone to test, and the subject is only killed if he is a genuine wolf. And after a successful detection, the villagers get another go; the day only ends after a test comes up innocent. (The first one’s free, so there at least two tests per day.) What’s the catch? At night, the werewolves pick a villager to convert. Their victim starts playing for the wolf team immediately, although he won’t find out who infected him until “werewolves, open your eyes” the next night. I am told that the play dynamics are wildly different, since you’re looking for changes in behavior, not hidden conspiracies.
• I am told that a children’s psychiatric facility has gotten its kids playing a “fox/henhouse” variant of the game. They use a one-shot vigilante role (on the villager team, can kill a werewolf at night once per game).
• Other variants are noted below, with links to groups that play that variant.

History

I did not invent this game; Dimitry Davidoff did, in 1986. I learned it much later, at the 1997 National Puzzlers’ League convention, under the name “Mafia.” (Two Mafia gangsters, one Knight Commandant, and everyone else innocent citizens.) I think werewolves are niftier, so I changed it.Dimitry Davidoff had a web page up on which he describes the origin of the game. The site is no longer available, but a copy can be found on archive.org. His rules are well off the current average, though. The players may lynch any number of people during the day, and lynched players do not reveal their identity. The villagers can only find out if they’ve won by ending the day and seeing if there are any killers left. There’s no communicating at night, and there is no moderator or Seer.

More about the origin of the game, from its creator:

i was studying at psychology department of moscow university. i was doing two years at once (roughly junior and senior years – yep, was a crazy time =) and teaching ap psychology class for high schoolers (translating it to american realities). my course paper was about time as the primary psychological (human) construct. so in my class, i was playing with different notions of time – why we want spent time as we spend it? is there a time we spent we rather wouldn’t (this would be a definition of a psychological symptom incedentally). anyway, i was trying to find an activity for students – so it would produce a biggest time spending with the smallest input (and i wouldn’t have to prepare for classes that much =). i was trying to find something that would structure time not by means of outside organization (being in class) or preparation (for example, previous common knowledge as a topic). first i was asking couple of students to make a secret agreement in a hall (about topic they want to discuss), then return to the classroom for others to guess it. and while watching this discussion, i suddenly realised (eureka kinda moment) – that WHO is in agreement is the biggest secret of all.my students become the first players. then of course student parties in my dormitory – biggest one in moscow – housing thousands of students from different departments. it quickly spread to other departments and dormitories – likely over next summer, through student summer camps. i [have] tried to keep a track of mafia since then – treating it as a natural experiment of a meme spreading. i guess due to its nature (no real prerequists to the game besides being a human – that was the idea of course), the game was spreading pretty fast in russia. in all possible discourses, from bandits and prisons (i have a firsthand accounts) to goverment meetings. and students of course were providing the main drive. i went to a few meetings with students in the us (mit media lab was one of the venues, btw) – and its the same pattern everywhere.

anyway, few things extra from the top of my head: 
     1. the whole approach (there are few other games i’ve created at that time) is grown out of lev vygotskiy (founder of the soviet psychological school in ’20s) and alan turing’s test. 
     2. the ‘moral’ aspect of the game is/was important too – errors of first and second type are unintuitive concept in psychology. to force players in accepting errors was one of my primary concerns. there were some psychological disputes on that topic, i was trying to solve 
     3. in ’89-’90 i was teaching psychology 101 for international students (mostly from socialist countries then), some of them probably become first seeds in spreading mafia outside russia. 
     4. i am still finding new things about mafia all the time, it is surprisingly euristic.

– Dimitry Davidoff (from email, September 2005)

Kristofers Sevcenko reports: “The Latvian national TV used to run a (IIRC) weekly TV show called ‘The Parliament vs. The Mafia’ ca.1990-95, which went by basically the same rules as described on your page. Please note, that I was around 12 at that time, so I don’t really remember all the details very clearly, but here’s how I remember it. It was played by celebrities and intellectuals and was rather popular. I think there were 12 players. Not sure how many gangsters were there, but one of them was a Godfather, who was the one who actually made the decision of whom to kill off during nightime. The ‘Seer/Knight Commandant’ was called an Investigator. Not very sure, but there might have been two Investigators. Also, the persons whom the players decide to ‘lynch’ during the day, got a minute to say their last words and try to convince the other players to let them live, after which all the players actually voted, with an equal vote meaning the person would be spared (I think).”Steven Clays reports: “We (= a Belgian group of 2500 ecologists between 8-25) learned the game from Slovenian people in July ’96.” Hm.

If you have any more information about the early history of the game, please send me a note. That’s erkyrath@eblong.com.

Commercial Editions of Werewolf

I know of three:

• Les Loups-Garou de Thiercelieux – a French publication by Philippes des Pallières and Hervé Marly of Lui-Même Games. Has a number of additional character cards, including the “Cupid” described above. Published in English as “The Werewolves of Millers Hollow”.
• Lupus in Tabula, from daVinci Games. Also has a bunch of character cards. (That page has rule translations into a bunch of languages, including Esperanto…)
• Are You A Werewolf? – published by Looney Labs. Just werewolf, villager, seer, and moderator cards; rules basically as described on this page. (Looney Labs events tend to degenerate into Werewolf late at night. Friday night at Origins 2002, we had four games running with 52 people total…)

And I might as well give my opinion about this sort of thing:I did not invent this game, so I have no right to permit or forbid people from publishing commercial versions of it, or otherwise making money off of it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s folk culture, as much as hopscotch or chess. (Even if it was invented in 1986 (see below). Folk work fast. The word gets around.)

On the other hand — if you publish a version which is called “Werewolf”, as opposed to “Mafia” or some other theme, it would be cool if you noted my name. I don’t insist. I’m just asking. Because I am the sole inventor of the idea of having this game be about werewolves… and while that gives me no rights of ownership, it does mean that the chain of causality flows back through me.

It’s kind of a weird feeling, actually. I am your memetic lycanthropic Eve!

Heh.

So in the process of upgrading WordPress I completely obliterated something to the point that I cannnot upgrade my database properly. So now I find myself in the unenviable position of having installed the latest version of WordPress and having to go through the old database that I have archived off in SQL and rebuild all of my posts.

Woo-hoo. Go me.