How to play Town of Salem in real life

So for those of you who dont know, Town of Salem is not entirely made up by blankmediagames. Before it became the online hit that it is today, it was a real game for medium-sized groups like school classes. It has many different names and there are quite a few different versions. I will now go ahead and tell you about the version I know and how that is played:

The name of the game that I was first introduced to is "Werewolves". I only ever played it in real life that one time with my class at school. I remember really getting into it and enjoying it, although a fair number of the people were a little too shy to really participate.

Thats the main problem that the game in real life has. The obstacle being people's own shyness. Obviously the online version with its "anonymity" solved that rather perfectly. It's also a rather big problem if people dont know the game already. It can be quite a feat to have to learn all the roles and their abilities at once without the handy-dandy on-screen guide to help you out.

Lets get into the game irl itself. Obviously, the more people you have playing, the more roles you can throw in, so I'll go through them in order of importance. First of all though, you should prepare some playing cards, or create some for all the roles.something that can be flipped over to hide the role but still layn out in front in a circle.

The Game Master: Mostly the teacher, or whoever offers themselves to do it. Or if you have some kind of ellaborate system of alarm clocks to time things, you could use that too. Either way, the Game Master does not actually play the game, but instead manages it. Their duty is to announce the different segways of the game. "It is night time, everybody has their eyes closed. Now the Werewolves open their eyes. Without any noise, point together at the person you're going to kill tonight". After that the Game Master removes that target's card from the circle and moves on with the monologue.

The Werewolves: Depending on how many people you have in your group, you decid how many werewolves you want in the round. In my case there were around 18 people. Three of which were Werewolves. Their only role is to decide silently at night who they want to kill. Obviously during the day they do their best to either lay low, or deceive the town people.

The innocent Townies: Not everybody gets an actual role. Most of the people playing are simply townspeople. They can only pray that they arent killed at night and try to work out who is evil at day time. Much like in the online version, they can decide per majority vote if they want to kill someone during the day. Obviously a rule can be enforced saying that they have to kill someone during the day, but only if you have loads of people playing.

The Detective: This is where the cards come into play. Like said, everybody gets assigned a random role at the very beginning. The Detective gets a little time every night to anonymously look at one person's card to see their role. The Game Master can either show him very silently which card he wants to see, or if the Game Master i somewhat organised, he can show the Detective the role from a list, just so long as nobody figures out who is checking what.

The "Little Girl": This role is a tricky one. Because it carries a lot of responsibility. The little girl is allowed to open her eyes, or peek through her hands to see what is happening at night. Obviously she knows from the start who is evil and who the Detective is. But just outright saying so will spoil the fun for everybody. I remember having this role and its dilemma myself when I played it, and I chose not to spoil anything until i was accused myself, in which case I only accused the person accusing me. It should be said here, that when the townies have killed a person during the day, or after the Werewolves kill someone at night, everybody sees what role the victim had.

The Lovers: These two people have the same role. It really isnt a good one. This role should only be included is there is a real load of people playing. 15 or more I'd say. Anyways, two people are assigned as "Lovers" When one of them dies, the other dies too. It's a way of giving the evil roles a somewhat realistic chance to win.

And that's all the roles. Remember that depending on how many players you have, you can choose to assign as many roles as you want. You can have more than one detective too if you want.

Now let me just give you an example of a full day in form of the Game Master's Monologue:

First everybody sits in a circle and gets a role card. take a look at it, then lay it out in front of you, upside-down, so nobody sees what role you have. Optionally you can write the above roles on a blackboard or give everybody a sheet of paper with the rules to help learn them.

1. It is Midnight. Everybody close your eyes. The (first) Detective opens his eyes and shows me, whose card he wants to inspect.

-> shows card.

2. The (first) Detective closes his eyes again.

3. The Werewolves open their eyes. Show me together without making any noise, who your victim shall be"

-> flips victim's card over

4. Now it's day time. Everybody opens their eyes and wakes up. it seems that Thomas died last night and his role was Townie. You have a little time to discuss.

5. The sun is going down. Now you must decide if you want to kill someone, and if so, who?

-> Takes vote for the Killing and in case of majority, flips over the victim's card and announces the role.

 6. Night has fallen, Everybody goes to sleep and closes their eyes.

Have fun deceiving and murdering your friends!