RogerBW's Blog

Today I'll introduce Coup: Rebellion G54. Anything in square brackets is to be thought about rather than read aloud.

[The standard roles when I was demoing this last were Farmer, Producer, Guerrilla, Priest and Lawyer. Substitute as appropriate.]

This is a game of hidden roles and bluffing.

There are five characters in the game – each of them has three cards in the deck – and you'll have two of those cards face down in front of you, representing your secret influence over them. On your turn, you will do one of seven things, shown by the cards. These two [Income and Coup] are always available: take one money, or pay seven money to launch a Coup, which will make another player lose a life – he turns one of his cards face up, and now it's out of play. If you lose both lives, you're out of the game. If you ever have ten money, you must launch a Coup.

Otherwise you can claim to have one of these five cards, and do what it says on it. So I might say "I am the Farmer, so I'll take three money and give one to someone else". Any time someone makes a claim, any other player can challenge it: so you might say to me "I don't believe you have the Farmer". Then I have to turn up a Farmer card if I have it. If I don't, I lose a life. If I do, you lose a life, and I shuffle that Farmer back into the deck and draw a new card so that you don't know if I still have it. If you don't challenge me, I just do the action without showing anything.

The Farmer takes three money, and gives one of them to someone else.

The Producer takes a card from the deck, and one from another player; look at them and your hand, give one card to the other player, another to the deck, and keep what's left. You can defend yourself against that, not only with a challenge, but by saying "I am also a Producer"… which itself is a claim that anyone can challenge.

The Guerrilla can assassinate: you pay four money and the target loses a life. But he can defend himself by saying he is also a Guerrilla. That's a risky thing to lie about: if he's challenged and is lying, he loses that card and then another for the assassination, and is out of the game on the spot.

The Priest takes one money from each other player, unless they also successfully claim to be a Priest.

You don't claim to be the Lawyer on your turn, but whenever a player is knocked out, anyone can say "I am a Lawyer so I get all his money". More than one player can claim, and there can be challenges; any Lawyers who are left share the money equally.

Whoever's left in the game last wins. Yes, it's player elimination, but a round usually goes fast enough that it doesn't matter.

[Later]

In the full game, you have more roles to choose from: there are five different green roles that give you money in some way, five blue that swap cards, five red that do violence in some way, and ten purple that do something unusual. Add-ons like Anarchy and the Kickstarter extras add more roles.