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I’m generally not a big fan of the board game subgenre known as “bluffing games.” The particulars vary, but these games are all about trying to suss out which players have been randomly assigned a secret “bad guy” role (or, if you’re a “bad guy,” trying to convince everyone else that you’re actually not a “bad guy”).

On paper, these games are a great excuse to start conversations, get friendly accusations flying, and generate the social glue that makes a great, memorable game. In practice, though, most of the bluffing games I play usually go something like this:

Other player: I think Kyle is the “bad guy.”

Me (regardless of whether or not I’m the bad guy): No, I’m not.

Other player: He’s totally lying! I totally know it!

Me: No, I’m not.

*repeat over and over and with various other combinations of players*

I’m exaggerating—but only a little. Bluffing games in my experience usually start with blind accusations and quickly devolve into micro-analysis of poker faces and stray laughs and conspiracy theories based on very little concrete information. Most of these games throw in a few twists to force some players to reveal secret information to certain other players, or they switch up the information that players think they know. Even so, there’s usually not enough actual info for the average player to make a truly informed accusation.

Secret Hitler stands out from these other bluffing games, though, by constantly forcing players to make actions that reveal important information about their role. The glut of (sometimes contradictory) information presented by players over the course of a Secret Hitler game makes trying to figure out who’s who a heavily informed guessing game rather than an essentially random shot in the dark.

Let’s put it to a vote

If you follow board games at all, you've probably heard about Secret Hitler during its successful Kickstarter campaign late last year , which raised nearly $1.5 million from over 26,000 backers. That fundraising effort wasn’t hurt by the involvement of Max Temkin, one of the creators of the ultra-popular Cards Against Humanity. We were provided with an early copy of the game to evaluate ahead of a planned April launch to backers, and we had a lot of fun with it.

In Secret Hitler, five to ten players are randomly divided into two teams: liberals, who want to expose Hitler, and fascists, who want to elevate him to power (one of those fascists is the Secret Hitler himself). The liberals always outnumber the fascists, but the fascists have the key advantage of knowing each other, and knowing who Hitler is (Hitler doesn’t know where his fascist support comes from in bigger games, though).

Both teams are racing to pass enough of their preferred policies (five for the liberals, six for the fascists) to take total control of the country before the other side. The fascists can also win by electing Hitler chancellor after three fascist policies have been enacted, and the liberals can win by assassinating Hitler (more on that later).

At its core, Secret Hitler is a game about voting. Every round, the role of president rotates clockwise around the table, and that president has to appoint a chancellor who he will work with to enact the next policy. The entire table needs to approve that chancellorship with a public majority vote, or the presidency (and the appointed chancellor) moves on to someone else.

After a chancellor is approved, the president draws three cards from a policy deck, which is packed with more fascist policies than liberal ones. The president chooses two of those policies to pass to the chancellor, who then picks one of them to actually enact into law.

Here’s where things get interesting. If a chancellor enacts a fascist policy, he can always claim that he had no choice, that the presumably fascist president screwed him over by passing him two such policies. The president can contradict him on this, though, accusing the chancellor of consciously ditching a liberal policy that he actually was passed.

Conversely, a fascist president can try to frame a liberal chancellor by passing him two fascist policies and then claiming that the chancellor threw out a liberal policy. Or two fascists in power can work together to make up a story about just how a fascist policy ended up on the board (“I drew three fascist cards as president, guys. Honest!”)

The rest of the table has to decide who to believe when inevitable conflicts arise, and the arguments that pop up as a result are always heated and hectic. If players are counting the cards that were allegedly drawn from the deck so far, they can also use that information to evaluate how likely any of these arguments are. (“You say you drew three of the four fascist policies remaining in the deck? I guess it’s possible…”)

For the fascists, voting fascist chancellors (or Hitler) into power can be tough if the more numerous liberals can identify each other and stay united. To help balance the scales, presidents can take advantage of some special powers as fascist policies get enacted. After the fourth and fifth fascist policies are enacted, for instance, the president gets to assassinate a player, stopping him from voting (or even talking) until there’s a conclusion.

Canny liberals can take advantage of this power, too, by helping to enact a late fascist policy and then using their power to try to assassinate Hitler. If they’re wrong, though, the fascists are that much closer to winning the game, and the liberals may just have lost one of their own supporters.

A flood of information

Where Secret Hitler excels is in forcing players to make frequent public decisions that could reveal something about their hidden role. Early on, voting on a chancellor and trying to determine who’s lying in conflicts is essentially a random guessing game. But appointing and voting on a chancellor, passing policy cards to the chancellor, and playing policies as the chancellor all involve revealing information to some other players. As that process repeats round after round and new arguments about the nature of those actions pop up constantly, there is a lot of fodder for semi-informed accusations and defenses to accompany every move.

The repetition of rounds in Secret Hitler also provides plenty of opportunities for fascists to try to earn the trust of the liberals, by passing liberal policies or appointing liberal chancellors when they don’t have to. On the other side, liberals can essentially test suspected fascists by trying to force them into a chancellor role, though this can backfire if fascists use the opportunity to get too many of their policies enacted (or if Hitler accidentally gets appointed).

Game details Designers: Mike Boxleiter, Tommy Maranges, Max Temkin

Publisher: Self-published

Players: 5-10

Age: 14+

Playing time: 15 minutes

Price: Not currently available for sale

Then you get into the poker-face-reading sublayers that are common to pretty much every bluffing game. Is that guy arguing so vociferously because he thinks he has key information or to hide his true fascist nature? Is that other player being quiet because he’s OK with what’s going on or because he’s hoping no one will notice that he’s actually Hitler?

The flood of information allows for some interesting strategies and arguments to develop. If fascists are too eager to get their policies enacted, they could lose the liberal support they need to become chancellor later in the game. Knowing when to bluff and when to make a move (or pull a super-secret double bluff) introduces a lot of layers of complexity.

From the liberal side, it’s not uncommon for opinions of other players to flip-flop back and forth from “suspected fascist” to “suspected liberal” many times over the course of a game. You always have to wonder if that person you think is arguing on your side is actually trying to confuse you from the opposite side, or whether the person you think is a fascist has actually been framed.

By the time a game ends, there’s plenty of time for recriminations and back-biting accusations that other players missed obvious clues. As it’s happening, though, trying to get a read on what’s actually going on is always frenetic and spirited debate that gets people talking and parties moving. If you’re looking for a bluffing game that demands a little more informed observation and a little less random accusation, Secret Hitler is one to watch out for.

The team behind the game has made a print-and-play version available for download. Non-Kickstarter backers will be able to buy the game in the near future; watch the Kickstarter page for updates on those plans.