Tag: Hidden Roles

Hidden Objective games are games in which a player’s role is kept secret from other players.

Hidden Leaders

| OTSG Staff

The island of Oshra is in turmoil. Following the death of the Emperor, the conflict between the Hill Tribes and the Imperial Army escalated. While the Water People try to maintain balance between the old rivals, the Undead aim to escalate the war. All hope rests on the six children of the Emperor: Who of them will claim the throne?

In Hidden Leaders, you take the role of one of six secret leaders, each of them is allied with two of the four factions/colors. By playing heroes into your tableau, either openly or secretly, you influence the outcome of the conflict.

At the end of the game, one of the four factions will win:
Red leading > Red victory
Green leading > Green victory
Tie between Red & Green > Blue victory
Red & Green in War Zone > Black victory
Each player who is aligned with the winning faction can claim the victory. However, they must have more heroes of this color than any competitor.

Hidden Leaders is a quick, light strategy card game with direct player interaction. It combines tableau building and deduction elements with its unique winning mechanism. This is a game of great tension with no-down time, that’s fast to learn. Its distinctive artwork and character names will make you smile.

—description from designer

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.82

Good Cop Bad Cop (Third Edition)

| OTSG Staff

You’re a cop in a corrupted police district where you have to figure out who’s on your side and who’s not with the ultimate goal of eliminating the leader of the opposing team. You’ll use guns, equipment, deduction, and some social engineering to assist your allies and take down your enemies. But be quick ’cause there aren’t enough guns for everyone!

The 3rd Edition gives Good Cop Bad Cop, overall, makes the game a little easier to learn and play. It adds usability improvements in the graphic design of the cards, simplifies the wording of the equipment, reduces the rulebook to a single page, adds an equipment reference sheet, and removes player numbers on equipment entirely.

The set of equipment has been culled to provide a more consistent experience that keeps the game always moving towards a conclusion. One equipment was removed, one was added as new, and a few others were taken from expansions and promos.

The box art and design is new as well and it is the first game of the Pull the Pin Games line. The 3rd Edition is still compatible with all previous expansions and promos.

—description from the publisher

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 4 – 8 Players
  • 20 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.33

Gathering of the Wicked

| OTSG Staff

Imagine a dark and desolate realm, filled only with chaos and misfortune, where only the truly evil and most powerful villains can survive and thrive. In a world where everyone is wicked, is there anyone you can really trust?

In Gathering of the Wicked, based on Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow, you play as a Disney villain such as Maleficent, Hades, or Captain Hook who is gathering in a dark realm with various henchmen. There, two teams fight for control, alternating between day and night phases. Each night, the villains wake up one by one and use their unique abilities to chase their objectives. Each day, the gathering debates and tries to unmask the traitors amongst them, but since no one knows which team other players are on, trusting each other will be tricky, and bluffing will be their best route to dominance within their new surroundings.

While each role is known by the other players, every character also has a “secret alignment” that determines their objective — making it even trickier to know who to trust!

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 6 – 12 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.67

Feed the Kraken

| OTSG Staff

Feed the Kraken is a hidden role deduction game, with three asymmetric factions. All players may be sitting in the same boat, but they want to navigate in different directions! The loyal sailors must bring the ship safely to mainland, whereas the pirates crave to secretly maneuver the ship into the Bermuda Triangle. Meanwhile a crazy cultist is busy convincing parts of the crew to help him summon their dark lord —the Kraken— from the depth of the sea to save them all.

The goal of the game is to navigate the ship towards your final destination, which would be easy if only players weren’t divided into three different factions. Each secret faction wants to reach a different area of the board. Every turn the ship will sail in one of the three possible directions —but which one will it be? The current captain and their chosen lieutenant will study ancient sea maps and pass their often conflicting orders onto the chosen navigator, who has to make the final decision. Meanwhile the rest of the crew is busy drinking rum, gambling and telling each other tales of ancient sea monsters.

After each navigation, the lieutenant and navigator go off duty, and the captain has to find somebody sober enough to take their spot instead. Everyone can discuss, how well that last navigation went, who is to blame for the current course, and who should be in charge in the future instead. Convince your enemies that it is in their best interest to make you the next lieutenant, or navigator! You can even draw your guns and become the new captain in open mutiny! But for how long will you be able to keep the trust of your crew? The next mutiny might already be waiting for you if your decisions don’t please your fellow sailors.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 5 – 11 Players
  • 45 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.17

Coup: Deluxe Edition

| OTSG Staff

Coup is all about who you know and how you use them. The game revolves around your “influence” – the face-down cards in front of you. Each card depicts a different character with their own powers that you can use. Each turn, a player will use their influence to perform various actions, all working towards removing other player’s influences. However, since no one knows what influences you have, you can lie to your hearts content – unless someone challenges you, making you lose an influence. Plan accordingly, avoid any coups, and be the last one remaining with influence left!

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • Hidden Roles
  • Memory
  • Player Elimination
  • Take That
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 8 Players
  • ~15 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.38

Burn the Witch

| OTSG Staff

Step back into a dark period in our past, when frenzy and paranoia dominated peoples’ perception of ‘the other’, driving communities across Europe to take the most extreme measures against their fellow man… or woman, as history would have it.

Burn the Witch is a game of social deduction where players are divided into two factions (zealots and sympathizers), which are pitted against each other in a bid for survival. Players represent houses, comprised of two to four villagers, one or more of whom may be a witch. The zealots win by uncovering the identity of all witches in play—a discovery made only through fire. The sympathizers win by keeping the witches’ identities hidden. With witches forming a small minority, the sympathizers’ only chance for success depends on their ability to employ cunning and misdirection as they seek to outwit the other players by turning the zealots’ xenophobia and pyromania back onto themselves.

The game typically goes for 45-75 minutes and concludes when either every witch in the village has been uncovered or enough innocents have been wrongly condemned that the witch hunt is called off, and the sympathizers win.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hidden Roles
  • Player Judge
  • Roles with Asymmetric Information
  • Traitor Game
  • Voting

Game Specifications:

  • 5 – 15 Players
  • 45 – 75 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.75

BANG! The Dice Game

| OTSG Staff

In the U.S. wild west, the eternal battle between the law and the outlaws keeps heating up. Suddenly, a rain of arrows darken the sky: It’s an Indian attack! Are you bold enough to keep up with the Indians? Do you have the courage to challenge your fate? Can you expose and defeat the ruthless gunmen around you?

BANG! The Dice Game keeps the core of the Bang! card game in place. At the start of the game, players each take a role card that secretly places them on a team: the Sheriff and deputies, outlaws, and renegades. The Sheriff and deputies need to kill the outlaws, the outlaws win by killing the Sheriff, and the renegades want to be the last players alive in the game.

Each player also receives a character card which grants him a special power in the game. The Sheriff reveals his role card and takes the first turn of the game. On a turn, a player can roll the five dice up to three times, using the results of the dice to shoot neighboring players, increase the range of his shots, heal his (or anyone else’s) life points, or put him in range of the Indians, which are represented by nine tokens in the center of the table. Each time a player rolls an arrow, he takes one of these tokens; when the final token is taken, each player loses one life point for each token he holds, then the tokens are returned to the center of the table.

If a player collects a trio of Gatling symbols on the dice, he fires one shot at everyone else and rids himself of Indian tokens. Who’ll get his shot off first? Play continues until one team meets its winning condition – and death won’t necessarily keep you from winning as long as your teammates pull through!

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 8 Players
  • ~15 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.28

BANG! The Card Game w/ Dynamite Box

| OTSG Staff

“The Outlaws hunt the Sheriff. The Sheriff hunts the Outlaws. The Renegade plots secretly, ready to take one side or the other. Bullets fly. Who among the gunmen is a Deputy, ready to sacrifice himself for the Sheriff? And who is a merciless Outlaw, willing to kill him? If you want to find out, just draw (your cards)!” (From back of box)

The card game BANG! recreates an old-fashioned spaghetti western shoot-out, with each player randomly receiving a Character card to determine special abilities, and a secret Role card to determine their goal.

Four different Roles are available, each with a unique victory condition:

  • Sheriff – Kill all Outlaws and the Renegade
  • Deputy – Protect the Sheriff and kill any Outlaws
  • Outlaw – Kill the Sheriff
  • Renegade – Be the last person standing

A player’s Role is kept secret, except for the Sheriff. Character cards are placed face up on table, and also track strength (hand limit) in addition to special ability.

There are 22 different types of cards in the draw deck. Most common are the BANG! cards, which let you shoot at another player, assuming the target is within “range” of your current gun. The target player can play a “MISSED!” card to dodge the shot. Other cards can provide temporary boosts while in play (for example, different guns to improve your firing range) and special one-time effects to help you or hinder your opponents (such as Beer to restore health, or Barrels to hide behind during a shootout). A horse is useful for keeping your distance from unruly neighbors, while the Winchester can hit a target at range 5. The Gatling is a deadly exception where range doesn’t matter: it can only be used once, but targets all other players at the table!

Information on the cards is displayed using language-independent symbols, and 7 summary/reference cards are included.

Whether you’re a sheriff, a bandit or a brawler of the worst kind, in the Wild West you can only believe in two things: gunpowder and dynamite!

This explosive BANG! box includes 8 legendary expansions, for a disrupting gaming experience!


DYNAMITE BOX

What does this official BANG! collectors box contain?

BANG! (base game)

BANG! The Great Train Robbery – Expansion

BANG! Dodge City – Expansion

BANG! Gold Rush – Expansion

BANG! Armed & Dangerous – Expansion (including Bloody Mary)

BANG! Expansion Pack:

BANG! Wild West Show – Expansion

BANG! The Valley of Shadows – Expansion

BANG! High Noon + A fistful of cards – Expansion

The Stick of Dynamite – To be used in a game variant

34 Wooden Bullets

8 premium Dual Layer Boards

Extra Content Slot

Extra Cards: Annie Versary (from BANG! 10th Anniversary), Emiliano (from BANG! 20th Anniversary), and special characters and cards from BANG! The Bullet!: Uncle Will, Johnny Kisch, Claus “The Saint”, “New Identity”, and “Handcuffs”

A single book for the rules (40 pages, 12.5×18 cm two-sided full-colour glossy stapled)

Game Specifications:

  • 4 – 7 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.63

Resistance: Avalon, the

| OTSG Staff

The Resistance: Avalon pits the forces of Good and Evil in a battle to control the future of civilization. Arthur represents the future of Britain, a promise of prosperity and honor, yet hidden among his brave warriors are Mordred’s unscrupulous minions. These forces of evil are few in number but have knowledge of each other and remain hidden from all but one of Arthur’s servants. Merlin alone knows the agents of evil, but he must speak of this only in riddles. If his true identity is discovered, all will be lost.

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • Deduction
  • Hidden Roles
  • Negotiation
  • Party Game
  • Team Based

Game Specifications:

  • 5 – 10 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.76

Agatha Christie’s Death on the Cards 🔵

| OTSG Staff

In Agatha Christie’s: Death on the Cards, which consists of a deck of eighty cards, players work co-operatively to solve a murder, using their detective skills to unmask the culprit and prevent their escape. The twist is that one of the players is the murderer and must work against the group to keep themselves hidden. Players also have dark secrets from their past they want to keep hidden from the other players. Who can you trust?

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.25