Day of the Thing

This game can also be run as "Night of the Vampire", with a few thematic tweaks.

A paranoid team of scientists are trying to gather together components of a damaged research station, so that they can radio for help. However, a shapeshifting alien - The Thing - is sabotaging this mission, and is slowly eliminating and replacing the scientists.

Setup instructions

Prepare a number of cards; 20 "radio" cards, 8 "gun" cards, 6 "blood test" cards and about half as many "infection" cards as there are players.

These can be professionally-printed cards, handwritten index cards, printed sheets of A4, physical props, or whatever else works - they just need to have their name, the number of parts required to make them, and the text of their function. (Don't invest too much money in making them, as they may get lost during the game; disposable card or paper machinery allows evil Thing players to casually crumple them up, throw them in rivers, or whatever else they feel like doing.)

You need to hide these cards around the playing area, before the game begins. They shouldn't be too easy to find - make the players move things around and look in obscure corners, to find them, and spread them over a large enough area that the players will have to split up to find them in time.

The game has a strict time limit, which you should decide and announce at the start of the game; if the scientists haven't built the radio by the end of that time, they lose.

Finally, pick a room to be the "laboratory" - this is where the scientists will assemble their radio. You'll stay here for the course of the game, and collect radio cards from scientists.

Player instructions

Welcome to what remains of your research laboratory.

You are a team of scientists trying to rebuild your lab equipment after an explosion. Scattered around the playing area are a number of pieces of your radio, represented by printed cards. The object of the game is to rebuild this radio - if you can collect twelve pieces and return them to the lab, you can call for the supply helicopter to turn around and rescue you, before it is out of range. It will be out of range at [time at which game ends].

However, there are two shapechanging aliens among you. These creatures were responsible for destroying your lab, and will be working together to sabotage the repair mission - destroying the radio components, leading you astray, and - if they get the chance - turning you into one of them. They will do this by putting their hand on your shoulder, handing you an "Infection" card and saying "You are now part of The Thing." As soon as you feel that hand, you cannot run, you cannot fight, you cannot cry out - you must accept your fate, tear up the Infection card, and become a Thing. From that point on, you are a part of The Thing, and will work alongside them to disrupt the scientists' plans. Your parent Thing may decide to split their leftover Infection cards with you, or not.

We have a few guns, with one bullet each. [reveal four gun cards] If you suspect another scientist of being a Thing, you can shoot them by tearing a gun card in half. This eliminates the other player from the game, whether they were a Thing or a scientist - they cannot say which they were, and should just return to the laboratory and sit the rest of the game out. You might find more guns out on the streets.

We also have a couple of blood test kits. [reveal two blood test cards] You can use these to test a scientist, by tearing them in half an accusing them of being a Thing - if they are, they must confess. It's up to you what you do with them at that point.

Note that the Thing's infection process requires a subzero temperature - they can't infect a scientist inside the walls of the laboratory.

Thing and weapon assignation

Split the Infection cards into two equal stacks. Ask the players to turn around and close their eyes, with their hands held behind them, and hand a stack of cards to two of the players. Tell them to hide the cards in a pocket, before anyone opens their eyes.

Since Things will have to do a lot of sneaking and lying to survive, you might like to offer players an opt-out, if they don't feel like being one of the primary Things - tell them that if they cross their fingers, you won't make them a Thing.

So that the two Things can establish one another's identity (and gang up more easily on the scientists), you should slip both of them a note with their cards - either a pre-written behaviour cue (tell them both to scratch their left ear a lot, or drop a certain word into conversation, or something) or a note you've written while setting up ("the other Thing is the player with the red scarf").

Once you've given out the Thing cards, hold out the Gun and Blood Test cards and let the players decide how to distribute them amongst themselves.

Night of the Vampire

This game ran as Night of the Vampire at Sandpit #7 in October 2008, as it was that time of year, and it seemed to fit the dark streets better.

Instead of blood tests and guns, the players simply had "Holy Water" - tearing this up let you splash it over another player, which would kill them instantly if they were a vampire, and have no effect if they were a villager.

(In the Sandpit version, vampires were allowed unlimited infections, which ended up with 90% of the players being bitten by the end of the game; the "Infection" cards were added to the game to address that, and should be included as "Bite" cards.)