Octopus Overlords

So over at Qt3, an awesome poster name fire has introduced me to a new style of game that brings a lot of familiar stuff to the Werewolf formula, but with enough twists to make it a completely different game.

It's called Resistance. It's a physical card game, and a great party game that I've already ordered for our next game night.

It translates really well to a forum, though, too.

Here's how it works.

1. There are 10 players. 6 are Resistance (team Goodguy) 4 are nasty, ugly spies (team Badguy).

2. The GM randomly selects a 10-player order. That order remains the same throughout the game.

3. The game proceeds in large scale "Turns". In each Turn, a Team Leader (the top person on the list of players) puts together a team of players to go on a mission. The Resistance wants the Mission to succeed. The spies want it to fail. There are 5 Turns in the game. If there are 3 mission successes in those 5 turns, the Resistance wins. If there are 3 failures in those 5 missions, the spies win.

4. The Leader is also dealt 3 plot cards at the beginning of the Turn. He either plays them himself or hands them out to others, depending on the card.

5. The Leader picks his team. The remaining nine players--including those on the team--vote publicly or privately via PM "YES" or "NO" about whether the team should proceed to the Mission phase. At the end of this phase, all votes, public and private are revealed and attached to players. The entire player group will know which way you voted on this.

6. If the vote is a majority "NO", then the mission attempt is scuttled and a new player becomes Leader. No new cards, but everything repeats.

7. Five scuttled missions in a turn result in a failure, which counts as a point to Team Spy.

8. If the mission goes forward and no plot cards disrupt it, then only the members of each team privately PM their mission success to the GM. Members of the team who are Resistance MUST vote "Success". Spies on the team may vote either "Success" or "Failure".

9. For the mission to succeed, each team member must have voted "Success". One failure fails a mission until Turns four and five (this is a house rule of fire's that I like.)

You can see us playing it in action in this thread, which really shows how simple (and fascinating) the gameplay is. It really is fun, uses a lot of familiar mechanics in new and interesting ways, and breathes some new life into this genre. I think with the right ten people playing it could easily exist concurrent and next to any currently in-play WW games.

Thoughts? Interest?

You can see the card game in action here (Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, et al.).

Enjoyable game in person, as long as a player doesn't have an obvious tell.

I am intrigued but my concern is the same as what has killed the enjoyment of the other games for me - if people sign up but don't play. And it might be worse here as there seems to be a lot of input needed from players before the game can proceed. Have you considered some mechanism for moving the game forward even if we don't hear from someone?

stessier wrote:I am intrigued but my concern is the same as what has killed the enjoyment of the other games for me - if people sign up but don't play. And it might be worse here as there seems to be a lot of input needed from players before the game can proceed. Have you considered some mechanism for moving the game forward even if we don't hear from someone?

I really like the way fire is running her game at Qt3.

She establishes a time period of 12 hours (with some flexibility) on votes, with no response meaning a Yes vote ("Silence equals consent, comrades!")

I'd probably say we'd need to expand the time window from 12 hours to 24 or 48 and be flexible with weekends.

Also, I'd want to use the plot cards that come with the Plot Thickens expansion (they're packed into new versions of Resistance, my copy of which should be here later today, thanks Amazon Prime!) Those cards aren't used in the simple 5-player game shown on Tabletop.

Also, Allison Scagliotti, rowr.

Yeah, a 24 hour deadline would work. I'll read up more on it when I get home.

My GF just bought me the physical version. I'd love to play this trig. IN!

Just got my copy (and it should be mentioned that it included the Plot Thickens expansion gratis) as well.

Going to try a 6-player game for boardgaming night this Saturday!

Always in

I own this game and have never played it. My group always choose other variants IE - Battlestar Galactica, etc..

But I am IN.

How did the game go?

Scoop20906 wrote:How did the game go?

Spies won. They seem to have something of an advantage in forum games. Looking at ways to address it.

I would be in.

Depends when it starts, but I would likely play.

triggercut wrote:

Scoop20906 wrote:How did the game go?

Spies won. They seem to have something of an advantage in forum games. Looking at ways to address it.

Perhaps you could work in the Merlin/Assassin roles from The Resistance: Avalon? They were previously available as a promo expansion for the original game, and are now included as part of the Hidden Agenda expansion (as the Commander [Merlin] and Assassin). The Merlin/Commander role is obviously similar to the Seer in conventional Werewolf, and can potentially help the good guys. Although with the Assassin, it necessitates a whole new level of intrigue and deception.

The rules for the additional characters are available here.

Personally, I've always preferred playing The Resistance: Avalon over its predecessor, largely because of the additional roles (as well as the removal of the plot cards, thereby eliminating the element of luck from the game). The additional roles mean that players tend to behave differently -- not just when they are good or evil, but also potentially when they are specific roles.

This sounds intriguing. I would give it a whirl.