As a veteran player as far back as the first BD WW game, I'd like to think I'm important.
Oh who am I kidding... we all know I am.
To put it frankly, the more hoops one has to jump through, the less fun it's going to be for everyone.
I think that rather than compiling a list of rules, we should write up a glossary of terms and traditions. "Ordo: aligned in the final count with the villagers; no special powers." "Wolf: aligned in the final count with the wolves; interacts with the wolves during the Night phase." Not rules, but a general paradigm. The things, basically, that we take for granted, but that new players might not. Not rules of how it should be in a game, but descriptions of how it usually has been.
Therein still lies a risk of somebody saying something in a game (I have most definitely 'played stupid' to gauge reactions) and having an instant, "Fea, please look at page 4 of X Thread where Barrowdowner says "_"." I feel that a great deal of the dynamism and spontaneity of games will be lost if we try too hard to limit understanding of how they *should* work.
However I believe that it is significant to have a couple major standbys.
But I think they can be summarized.
1) Special roles and special rules do not need to be explained (otherwise there goes the secret) but they *should* be announced in a reasonable way. Like, "By the way, there's a secret role." As long as it's understood by the village that there are one or more variables to contend with, it's okay to have unannounced variables.
When performing experiments, scientists require dependent and independent variables because if you have nothing concrete to compare your findings to, then there's no objective way to look at your findings.
Same goes for werewolf: the nature of the roles provides us with dependent variables and we can judge behaviors and evidence accordingly. As long as we know how many bad guys there are, for example, (or as long as we know that we don't know), we are able to measure and surmise.
If we're just told to play and that we'll find out later?
I once modded a game that became a wee bit legendary and I still haven't quite lived that reputation down. It was announced before the game started that I wasn't going to reveal roles upon deaths and that I'd let the village know when the game ended, and that until that point they should do their level best to kill the bad guys.
As the mod, the intention was always to have a last person standing. I'd intended to show that you can find suspicious behavior anywhere, and you can 'prove' without doubt that somebody is evil whether or not they are. I was basically just subverting assumptions that you can objectively do anything. It was a distinctly cerebral game, very philosophical in its approach and its playing out. There were only two wolves because teams didn't matter so much. But when both wolves died within two days? I kept the game going. But there were never any illusions that I wasn't messing with everybody. It was an invitational game and there was full disclosure with each golden ticket that I was tampering with assumptions. I didn't say how, but it was announced that the game was abnormal and that it existed to amuse me.
Basically, I gave the village warning that I knew more than they did about what was going to happen, and I stuck with the one concrete fact that the winner was going to be the last person alive regardless of their role.
But the point was that I announced that something was going to be weird.
I don't think mods should have to give full disclosure on
what they plan to surprise the players with, but I do believe they should disclose that a surprise
exists.
2) Assume your players have never played before, and describe your roles and rules accordingly.
3) The reason we have mods is to make split second decisions when the unexpected arises. As long as the mod is clearly making a valiant effort toward a fun and fair game, we should fully accept their decision making.
4) Co-mods are okay, as are substitutes, as long as privileged information remains privileged. For instance, if FeaMod can't make deadline, and I call up NiennaOrdo to post that Mira is dead and she was a wolf, I'm not filling in Ni with any information she wouldn't immediately have upon reading that same post I'd write. "Let the village know that-" is one thing. But "Hey NiennaOrdo (who's still alive), would you let SeerLari know that MiraWolf is a wolf, and then RangerRikae needs to choose her protection!"
That? Not so okay. Basically it should probably be assumed that in a pinch, passing on PUBLIC information is okay, whereas any living players should not be made aware of secret information regardless of what the mod is up to. (unless, as mentioned in rule 1, it's already a given that the mod might do this).
--
Basically my suggestions boil down to:
1) you must disclose that you have something to disclose, even if you don't disclose the nature of the disclosure
2) be really detailed in your explanations of rules and roles even if you think everybody already knows what you're talking about
3) don't tell living players anything they're not allowed to know
4) our list of 'rules' shouldn't be rules, but should be assumed definitions that can be ignored at will as long as the mod follows rules 1 and 2.