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Sunday 14 December 2014

SANTA SABOTEURS: Download and play a festive version of the Werewolves card game.


This time last year, I wrote a blog post about the annual visit of the Puzzle Elf to the Emmett household. This year I thought I’d write about another of my family’s elf-based Christmas antics and give you the chance to join in the fun.

My family and many of our friends are big fans of the parlour game commonly known as Werewolves. Originally called Mafia, the game was invented in the 80s by Russian psychology student Dimitry Davidoff. It can be played with an ordinary pack of cards or even a few scraps of paper, but we usually play it with a proper deck of Werewolves cards like these.


Although the game has a distinctly Halloweeny feel, we play it all year round. It’s a popular fixture at our Christmas parties and a couple of years ago I decided to create a special festive version, called Santa Saboteurs, to play at this time of year.

This version of the game it set at Santa's North Pole workshop where the elves have been infiltrated by a small number of evil goblins — the Santa Saboteurs. The elves must root out the traitors in their midst and banish them from the workshop before Christmas is ruined for everyone!

If you fancy playing it yourself, you can download pdfs of the cards and rules below. The cards pdf contains both the card-fronts and the card-backs (with the snowflakes on). It’s best to print the cards pdf onto a sheet of A4 card or thick paper. Once you’ve printed out the card-fronts, turn the card/paper over and put it back into the printer to print the card-backs on the reverse side. Then cut carefully along the dotted lines to make your set of cards.

Click the images above to download pdf files of the cards and game rules

If you've never played Werewolves, don’t be put off by the length of the rules. Only one person, the moderator, needs to understand them fully and then he/she will be able to guide the other players throughout the game. Most people find the game easy to pick up once they start playing and it can be played with children as young as five.

The game is suitable for 8 to 24 players.

If you do make your own set, I hope you enjoy playing it as much as we do!




For a darkly funny Christmas story about another would-be Santa Saboteur
check out The Santa Trap by me and Poly Bernatene.

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