Social Deduction

Have you ever looked at your friends and thought they were acting a bit suspicious? Ever contemplated if they were trying to sabotage, or worse, kill you? Sneaking around, coming up with half baked excuses, or maybe you followed them once in an attempt to catch them out and expose them as the next Hitler, in which case you maybe going a bit to deep into this and you should probably eject before you get arrested, but I digress. Maybe you fancy yourself as a solid liar and if so this could be the article for you.


Today I’m looking at social deduction games, games in which players adopt the guise of an in-game character in an attempt to subvert the assumptions of everyone else. They involve keeping a straight face, talking just the right amount as to not give anything away or arouse suspicion and slyly getting information out of other players.

I’ll be looking at three social deduction games that all offer different mechanics and amount of players. 

Coup

Coup is a game about families, manipulation and influence. Players attempt to be the last one standing after stripping their opponent’s of any Influence they had. Influence is represented in this game by face down character cards, each of which is tied to an ability. At the start of the game each player is dealt out 2 coins and 2 face down character cards that only they may look at. 

Coup’s gameplay is based around memory and bluffing. Each player has access to 8 different abilities - gaining coins, trying to rid an opponent of a character card which usually involves paying money, and protecting your character cards from being tampered with. 

Players can use any of the 8 abilities despite what characters they have been dealt, this is where the memory and bluffing aspect comes in. You will need to keep an eye on what abilities your opponent’s are using turn to turn, if you think they have used an ability of a character card they don’t have you can challenge that ability. If that player doesn’t have the corresponding character they lose an Influence - Character card- of your choice. However, if they do have that character they can choose to reveal it, in which case you would lose Influence and your opponent would shuffle that character card back into the deck and draw a new one. 

It’s all pretty straight forward but the beauty of Coup - as something you will find is a running theme in this article - are the subtle nuances of your choices: You can stick to a couple of abilities as to not arouse suspicion from other players, playing it safe until you’re in a position to strike. Or you mix it up, never sticking to the same ability in a consecutive turn and playing fast and loose. Another tactic you can employ is choosing not to reveal a character card you have when you’re called on using the corresponding ability. What this does is makes your opponent think that you no longer have access to that ability now without a huge drawback, what they don’t know is you’re bluffing them. 

Avalon

Moving on to a more cooperative side of bluffing games Avalon splits players into two teams, one side good and one side evil. This is achieved by randomly determining who gets which character. The evil characters and one specific good character - namely Merlin - know who each other are, though all of the good characters don’t know each of the other good characters. 

The game consists of 5 quests and for either side to win they need to either complete or fail respectively 3 of the 5 quests. Each round has two parts to it: building a team of adventurers and going on the adventure. The leader of that round - the leader changes each round going clockwise - chooses however many characters needed for the current round, before that though they need to try and deduce characters they would take on this adventure are good or evil. The team building doesn’t stop there however as all players then get to vote as to whether or not the selected characters should go on the adventure. If it’s a success the adventure commences, a fail and the leader marker moves to the next player and the team building starts again. 

Each character taking part in the adventure then votes on its success or failure - good characters can only vote to succeed whereas evil characters can vote for either success or failure. One vote to fail and it’s all over. 

Avalon is very different to Coup as you aren’t trying to bluff what you have access too but where your allegiances lie. Because there’s only a finite amount of rounds you need to act quickly and be witty with your remarks, making sure no one catches on that you’re trying to sway the decision one way or the other. Avalon is all about talking. 
You need to talk smart when the team is being selected to ensure you help the leader make the correct decision and be able to talk your way out of any particularly difficult line of questioning when someone decides to throw you under the bus because they are positive you’re evil. 

Liar’s Dice

Lastly, Liar’s Dice is the most basic of the three games we’re looking at today. Each player is given five dice, usually D6’s, rolls them and then hides them under a cup or behind their hand. 

The starting player makes a bid relating to the collective amount of a certain number they think has appeared on the hidden dice, for example “there are three 2’s. Going around the table each player can either: make a bid by increasing the amount of the value the last player declared - “I think there are four 2’s” -, increasing the value of the dice - “there are four 3’s” - or contesting the previous players bid. When you contest a bid each player reveals their dice and you count up how many of whatever value was declared. If the amount matches or exceeds the bid then the player that contested it loses a dice, if it falls short of the bid the player that made that bid loses a dice. 

The last player with dice is the winner. Simple. 

This is one of my favourite games because it’s so simplistic, you just need a handful of dice and that’s it.  It’s also a really quick game when every knows what they’re doing, I use it regularly to pass the time between rounds at tournaments. The small bluffing aspect comes in the form of trying to make a bid that’s larger than the last one but not so large that you get instantly called out, you want it to be in that sweet spot that would cause the next player to try and go one better. Liar’s Dice may not be the most intricate of games but games don’t need to be needlessly complicated to be good. The great thing about Liar’s Dice is that it’s easily modifiable, for example I’ve taken to playing it with a mix of dice - D6, D10 D20 etc - this rendition makes the game much harder but much more fun in my opinion. Liar’s Dice helps increase a persons ability to read people which is invaluable in life let alone gaming, which is a plus in my book.

These are just some of the Social Deduction genre of games. Maybe they’ve inspired you to try some out for yourself. Even if you’re not good at lying they are all still a good laugh and worth looking into, if so why not take a trip down to your local games store who would be happy to give you a demo. Why not let us know which one is your favourite on twitter at @gcgamingtank. In the mean time however, remember to keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates and as always, happy gaming guys!