MMOG Nation notes that Teppy has decided to add a special event to A Tale In the Desert III: the game of Werewolf. For the uninitiated, Werewolf is a large, 15+ person game where a small number of werewolves (2-3) randomly whack villagers while the villagers randomly lynch people until they (hopefully) nail all the wolves. Note, the game is also called Mafia and has no relation to any Whitewolf property at all).

Anyway, the writer asks why more people haven’t taken games from outside the social space and brought them into the gaming space. The simple answer is that it depends on the game. Werewolf is a purely social game, and it’s frequently the highlight of gamer conventions. However, numerous people have tried to take the game from the con and tried to implement it in an online format, usually in an IRC room. The problem is that the game is, effectively, 100% about lying, bluffing and deducing who else is lying and bluffing. Online, it’s too easy to disguise your lying ass, and to ensure that your responses are always identically the same, whether you are the werewolf or not.

That’s not to say that offline games can’t be fertile ground for those online. We added K.A.O.S. (Killing as an Organized Sport, also called Assassin) to Meridian 59 some 10 years ago. And let’s not forget that CTF started as a way for P.E. teacher to humiliate nerds in the 2nd grade. So offline games can and do frequently step into the online gaming space.

But I don’t think that ATITD’s werewolf translation will do great, beyond the obvious novelty value. Who knows, though? Teppy has a habit of proving more conventional designers wrong.