RLupus: Cooperation through emergent communication in The Werewolf social deduction game

TL;DR

This paper investigates how emergent communication through reinforcement learning can enhance cooperation in social deduction games, specifically The Werewolf, demonstrating that communication signals significantly improve winning chances.

Contribution

It formalizes social deduction games and explores how different communication signals affect cooperation and success in The Werewolf game.

Findings

Communication signals increase winning chances

Signal length and range have a non-linear impact

Emergent communication supports cooperation in SDG

Abstract

This paper focuses on the emergence of communication to support cooperation in environments modeled as social deduction games (SDG), that are games where players communicate freely to deduce each others' hidden intentions. We first state the problem by giving a general formalization of SDG and a possible solution framework based on reinforcement learning. Next, we focus on a specific SDG, known as The Werewolf, and study if and how various forms of communication influence the outcome of the game. Experimental results show that introducing a communication signal greatly increases the winning chances of a class of players. We also study the effect of the signal's length and range on the overall performance showing a non-linear relationship.