Rules

The following rules explain how to play Black Rock Outpost. Please make sure you have read them carefully before the game begins.

Golden rule: Don’t be a dickhead!

This game only works if we all follow the rules. We’ve designed the game to include a bunch of fun roles and its possible edge cases haven’t been spotted and clarified. If you spot a mistake or gain access to information and powers you shouldn’t have try not to exploit them, and let us know.

Basic Rules

Overview:  Black Rock Outpost is based off the parlour game known as Mafia or Werewolf: a bluffing and deduction game that pits an informed minority, the Authority, against an uninformed majority, the Outpost. Each player secretly receives an Identity Card describing their role, alignment and any special win condition at the start of the game.

The aim of the Outpost players (who do not know anybody’s true role or alignment) is to eliminate all Authority players. They do this by using their unique abilities, deductive abilities and superior numbers to find the Authority agents lurking in their midst and vote to remove them from the game (which we call “Spacing”).

The aim of the Authority (who are aware of each others’ roles and alignments) is to eliminate enough members of the Outpost to make it impossible for the Humans to overcome them.

Rules & Punishable Offences: Punishment may involve removal from the game, a suspension of your powers, or a penalty imposed on your faction (mod discretion).

  • Don’t impersonate other players, or post under any name other than your own identity.
  • Don’t post if you’ve been killed for the rest of the game.
  • Don’t edit or delete any posts you make, even if you make a mistake.
  • Don’t talk about the game outside of the forums provided. This is crucial!
  • Don’tpost in code or any other language than English.
  • Do post at least once and submit one action every game turn.
  • Do use the correct syntax to ## vote when public votes are required. Incorrectly formatted votes may not count (see Standard Voting Procedure below.)
  • All extra rules provided here or in your identity card must be followed.

Game Turn Structure

Every turn will take exactly 24 hours in the real world and represents one day of game time. Each turn follows the same basic structure.

DAY PHASE
  1. A new edition of the Daily Pioneer is released with information on any new overnight deaths. Usually this will include a reveal of the role and alignment of the player.
  2. Players can discuss the night’s events in the comments thread below the new post. During this they can ## vote for a player to Space (see Standard Voting Procedure below).
  3. Once a majority of players have voted for one target, or the game turn’s deadline is reached we head to the Night Phase.
NIGHT PHASE
  1. Players submit Night Actions using the sidebar button. To speed up the game, if possible have your night action locked before the turn ends – or as soon as possible after the turn ends.
  2. Once all night actions are locked in, they are resolved via email and the next day begins.

Night Actions

Some players are required to perform one Action during the night phase.

Actions are submitted by entering them into your website account profile using the link to the top left. You must be logged in to do this. The email itself can be blank but the subject must follow the format listed on the Roles page.

## ActionName PlayerName

Be careful to format your action correctly or it may not be registered. Your action is secret – do not post your action in a public channel!

Nightkill is a special type of action only performed by Authority agents. Only one agent may perform a Nightkill action. If two agents attempt to perform a Nightkill neither will have an effect.

Standard Voting Procedure

To vote, use the syntax below. Unlike with Night Actions, votes are entered directly into the comments below each day’s post.

## vote PlayerName

Put a space between the hashes and the words or the vote may not be registered. N.B. To change your vote, you must first unvote the player you are currently voting for, like so:

## unvote OldPlayername
## vote NewPlayername

Votes are tallied at the end of a game turn, and updated as reasonably often as possible on the day’s post. If one player receives a majority of votes the turn immediately ends. This is called *dropping the hammer* and may trigger other game abilities. If you notice the hammer dropped please notify the mods, stop posting and give us time to close the thread and end the turn.

That’s it! Have fun, space cowboys!