Welcome to Sanderson Elimination!

[little wilson she/her]

Hello and welcome to Sanderson Elimination!

If you’re a fan of the classic party games “Mafia” or “Werewolf” or if you just like social deduction games, you’ve come to the right place!

If you’re a roleplayer who wants to have fun roleplaying in various Brandon Sanderson settings in games with lots of flavor, you’ve also come to the right place! Just…don’t get too attached to the characters you create - statistically speaking, there’s an over 50% chance your character will die. :(

 

Sanderson Elimination is a social deduction game mixed with roleplay (RP), with game settings from Brandon Sanderson’s books. Many of the games are built with flavor from the setting, so instead of being a townsperson rooting out the mafia/werewolves, you’re a villager rooting out the Spiked or a lighteyes rooting out the Diagrammists, etc.

 

How Do I Join Sanderson Elimination?

Spoiler

Joining SE is pretty simple:

1. Read/skim the Rules & Etiquette thread, in particular the first two posts, "About Sanderson Elimination" and "Player Etiquette".
2. Wait for a game sign-up thread to be posted. These threads are pinned to the top of the subforum to make them easier to find and should have "Signups" in the title. Once a game has started, it is no longer pinned, so look for pinned game threads.
   • While waiting for a signup thread to be posted, you can:
     • Read through past games.
     • Ask to be included in the current game's spec doc - a Google doc where you can talk with the GM and other spectators of the current game.
     • Join the SE Discord server, where you can ask questions and mingle with the SE community. You can also add the server's "player" role, which pings people when a new game has been posted.
3. Create a character (more on that below) and post in the signups thread to sign up.

That’s it! Once you’ve posted in the thread, the GM will add you to the list of players and then all you have to do is wait for the game to start. You’re welcome to engage in RP with your character in the sign-ups thread but you can also just wait out the sign-up period until you get your PM from the GM. The PM will have the information you need about your alignment (good or evil) and/or role abilities. Your GM PM is usually used throughout the game to submit actions. You can also use it to ask questions about the game rules or abilities.

 

How Do I Create a Character?

Spoiler

Creating a character in Sanderson Elimination does not mean that you must RP with that character. If you don’t want to RP, you don’t have to, but it’s nice for everyone to have a character for the GM to work with if they need to include your character in a writeup.

That said, creating a character can be as simple as coming up with a name for the character. This can be a play off of your username or something completely different. If you’re interested in RPing the character, you can also come up with some additional flavor for your character. What’s motivating them? What’s their most distinctive trait? What brought them to this setting? What’s their profession? You can even kick it off with an RP in your signup post.

Here's a variety of examples from some past games:

Spoiler

Quote

I'm in as Pyra Ghetti

 

 

Quote

I'll sign up as Varda Elentari, a mediocre student who's been around for a while.

 

Quote

mad watcher watched. she was super good at watching. its how she got her name didntcha know? and auctions were great places to watch. especially the silent kind? so much watching trying to figure out who else was bidding on what you wanted and then ki - i mean. watch them. yep. just watch. mad watcher didnt do anything but watch. ever. its why she was mad at it - mad as in so good she was a mad watcher. you know? it certainly wasnt for anything else that word could mean. that would just be....well. mad.

mad watcher signing up. woot.

 

Quote

Everybody knew the dice were loaded. Everybody rolled with their fingers crossed.

Valens wasn't rolling dice, though he moodily rolled a clip over his knuckles and between his fingers. His beer sat in front of him, mostly untouched.

"Oh, come on," said Roark, who was on his fifth beer by now. "Sure, you bungled it up, but there're plenty of fish in the sea."

Valens just shot him a look, and carried on playing with the clip.

You win some, you lose some.” Roark clapped him on the shoulder. “C’mon, there are better things to be doing than moping about in a hole like this.” People lost things in places like Kengold’s. If you were lucky, all you lost were your boxings. Valens knew someone who’d lost his liver in Kengold’s. Still, the alcohol was cheap, and harsh enough to peel paint, which entailed that it was good enough for Valens to drown some memories that didn’t bear carrying.

“I like it here.”

“Lord Ruler,” Roark muttered. “You’re wallowing.”

“Seems to me I’m entitled to some…” Valens flipped the coin, made it disappear down Roark’s left coat-pocket. “Wallowing.”

“There’s wallowing, and then there’s pathetic, and then there’s ‘we could turn this into one of those ten-boxing plays’,” retorted Roark. “You know ‘em, the sort of rust that only sells ‘cause they’ve packed the place with Soothers and Rioters.”

Valens sighed. “You’ve made your point.”

“Finally. So let’s get out of this rusting place already, and—”

“Nah,” Valens said. “I’m staying. I think this place is starting to grow on me.” He produced another clip and began to fidget with it again.

Roark had a catalogue of sighs and expressions. This particular one, Valens recognised as a combination of ‘Valens-you’re-too-rusting-stubborn’ and ‘Valens-she-isn’t-worth-it’ and ‘Valens-being-your-friend-is-so-rusting-hard-sometimes.’

He knew that. But it didn’t make that little gnawing wyrm of hurt and shame go away. After all wasn’t there that Erikell who’d written that reason was the slave to the passions?

-

Too much RP for a sign-up? This one seems so sparse Either way, Valens has love-life problems and figures this might be just the thing.

Go with whatever feels right for you. If that means signing up with only a character name on the first game, and seeing what happens, that’s great! If you’d like to try your hand at more RP in the setting, that’s also great!

 

What Else Do I Need to Know?

Spoiler

If you’re familiar with Mafia/Werewolf, you know that there are day and night turns. During the day, the players in the game vote publicly on a player to kill (we in SE call this the exe) and during the night, the mafia/werewolves choose a townsperson to kill. Some of our games follow this same turn structure while other game formats combine the day/night into a single turn.

We have 3 game formats: the Quick Fix, the Mid-Range, and the Long Game. The Quick Fix combines the day/night into 24 hour turns, so each real-world day, you’re voting on someone in the thread while also losing a player to the “eliminator” team. The Long Game keeps the turns separate, with 48 hour days and 24 or 48 hour nights. The Mid-Range has 48 hour “cycles”, which the GM can choose between a single 48 hour turn combining the day/night into one or separating the day/night out into 24 hour turns. 

Due to the turn length, the Quick Fixes last up to 7 days, but more typically take 4-5 days to finish. The Mid-Ranges can take a little longer, but usually fall between 1-3 weeks. The Long Games can take anywhere from 2 weeks on the very low end to 4-5 weeks on the high end.

Lastly, sometimes a GM builds a game that changes one or more fundamental “rules” of the game. These changes are always clearly laid out in the initial post of the game thread where the GM introduces the game ruleset. They could be changing the “teams” so instead of the village vs the eliminators it’s several factions battling against each other until one comes out on top, or a free-for-all where everyone is on their own team and trying to be the last person standing. Some games have changed the turn/cycle structure, like a Long Game where every turn has both an exe and an eliminator kill. Some GMs have built games that have a “black-out” ruleset, where the players might know very little going into the game.

These types of games are not terribly common, but we highly recommend reading the available ruleset of a game so you understand if any of these changes are occurring. We’d hate for a player to sign up for a game thinking they’re getting a classic village vs eliminators style and it ends up being a free-for-all.

 

And that’s about it. If you have any questions, feel free to comment on this post and we’ll do our best to answer it. Once again, we welcome anyone and everyone to the Discord server, whether you’re an active player, a prospective player, or just interested in the community but aren’t sure if you want to play. We don’t bite (though we might stab you in the back….figuratively speaking of course!)

Welcome to SE!

[I am Adonalsium He/Him]

Okay, thank you!

[al_lan_mandragoran]

Is SE only on discord?

As in, if I can't join the discord server, does that mean I can't play?

(I don't have discord)

[Araris Valerian he/him]

Just now, al_lan_mandragoran said:

Is SE only on discord?

As in, if I can't join the discord server, does that mean I can't play?

(I don't have discord)

SE is played exclusively on the forum (at least for now, we've chatted a bit about discord formats).

[Honors Spectral Image She/her]

Can I play?

[Akimikoisthecutest]

3 minutes ago, Honors ghost said:

Can I play?

I don't know if we have anything open right now, but as soon as a game ends, I would love to play with you.

Oh, but you can spectate something like Lords of Luthadel to see how it works.

Edited November 15, 2025 by Akimikoisthecutest

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

52 minutes ago, Honors ghost said:

Can I play?

I can ping you when the next sign ups are open.

Also if you haven't already, you should read this.

[Honors Spectral Image She/her]

24 minutes ago, KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren said:

I can ping you when the next sign ups are open.

Also if you haven't already, you should read this.

How much of it? Or all of it?

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

10 minutes ago, Honors ghost said:

How much of it? Or all of it?

I'd say you only need the first 3 posts. 

[Honors Spectral Image She/her]

Just now, KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren said:

I'd say you only need the first 3 posts. 

Ok I’ll read it a bit later I’m a lil busy rn thx thoo

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

Just now, Honors ghost said:

Ok I’ll read it a bit later I’m a lil busy rn thx thoo

Yeah the current game will take a week or so.

[Usseewa ✾ They♡??? ✾]

So, uhm, can someone explain how to play and stuff? I've never played Mafia or anything. That I know of. Might've been under a diff name, or related.

[___ He/Him]

2 minutes ago, Usseewa said:

So, uhm, can someone explain how to play and stuff? I've never played Mafia or anything. That I know of. Might've been under a diff name, or related.

Ok so basically there are 2 general teams. The villagers, and the eliminators. The job of the elims is to kill all the villagers. The elims know who each other are, the villagers do not. It is the job of the villagers to find and vote out the elims. At the beginning of the game everyone is assigned roles, to make the game interesting.

That's it in a nutshell 

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

Mafia, sometimes called Werewolf, is a game of Social Deduction and Elimination. At it's most basic, there are two factions of players, The Village, who are an uninformed Majority, and The Eliminators, who are an informed Minority. Each cycle of the game, all players vote for a single player to be removed from the game, and the Eliminators choose a villager to be removed from the game. If all of the Eliminators are removed, the Village wins the game. If most of the Village is removed, the Eliminators win the game.

[Fizz9]

When will the next game be / can someone message me when there is a sign up posted?

[|TJ| he/him]

1 minute ago, Fizz9 said:

When will the next game be / can someone message me when there is a sign up posted?

Hi! Welcome to SE! The next game should go up during the weekend. Keep a look out in the subforum for thread with [Sign-Ups] in its name and I'll try to tag you when it goes up as well! 

[Fizz9]

7 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

Hi! Welcome to SE! The next game should go up during the weekend. Keep a look out in the subforum for thread with [Sign-Ups] in its name and I'll try to tag you when it goes up as well! 

Thank you @|TJ|! I appreciate it!

[Spahc11 He/Him]

Hello! I've played Mafia A LOT, but when will the next game take place/can someone ping me when signups open?

And if you miss a turn due to inactivity (something turned up irl), is it fine?

Edited May 19 by Spahc11

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

48 minutes ago, Spahc11 said:

Hello! I've played Mafia A LOT, but when will the next game take place/can someone ping me when signups open?

There are sign ups open right now, but the game is... very complicated

Not a recommended first game

48 minutes ago, Spahc11 said:

And if you miss a turn due to inactivity (something turned up irl), is it fine?

You need to warn the GM(s) if possible, and you might be replaced.

It is best if you are able to log on at least once per turn.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

3 hours ago, Spahc11 said:

Hello! I've played Mafia A LOT, but when will the next game take place/can someone ping me when signups open?

And if you miss a turn due to inactivity (something turned up irl), is it fine?

The next game can be found here: 

It is definitely very complicated, but if you’ve at least played mafia with roles before, you could probably figure it out anyway. Up to you though! It’ll just be awhile before a simpler game gets run probably.

[Qianweilian He/him]

12 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

The next game can be found here: 

It is definitely very complicated, but if you’ve at least played mafia with roles before, you could probably figure it out anyway. Up to you though! It’ll just be awhile before a simpler game gets run probably.

I love how my meme is exported everytime someone links to it on the shard

[Spahc11 He/Him]

7 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

The next game can be found here: 

It is definitely very complicated, but if you’ve at least played mafia with roles before, you could probably figure it out anyway. Up to you though! It’ll just be awhile before a simpler game gets run probably.

Thanks for the info! Probably won't start this as my first game, I'll wait for the next tbh.

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

54 minutes ago, Spahc11 said:

Thanks for the info! Probably won't start this as my first game, I'll wait for the next tbh.

You can always spectate! We'll have a Google Doc where we (me, my co-GM, the IM, and any other spectators) will discuss the game and just generally chat.