Social Deduction Games. Some people love them, some people hate them.

Either way, here are some tips on playing them as well as a bit of info and some suggested games.

Top 10 Tips for Social Deduction Games

These tips for social deduction games not only help read your opponents and give generic tips that help on all social games but also look at the psychology of catching out a player at the table.

What are they?

Social Deduction games are the evolution of deduction card games. Games like Poker where you have to deduce if your hand is better than your opponents. You do this based on your hand, the odds, player behaviours etc

From this, the genre moved on to games like Cluedo which is obviously a deduction game. Later came Scotland Yard which with its ‘1 vs many’ gameplay is heading towards the social deduction side.

These games also add a bit of theme and made them more family-friendly and accessible for younger audiences. They also remove the gambling element from games like Poker and Bridge.

Then in 1986 Mafia came a long and was a huge influence. It not only brought a more social side of things but it also added the “Informed Minority vs the Uninformed Majority” that make up the most of Social Deduction games today.

This is where the bad guys (Werewolves etc) are fewer in number but know who the other bad guys are in the game. The good guys (The Villagers etc) are larger in number but have less information about who is who.

This leads to the interesting point that the good guys can’t always trust the good guys. This is one of the key points of social deduction games.

Asynchonous Play & Social Communication

Following on from that comes Asynchronous play with different players each having different goals. I’m not just talking about the Bad Guys and the Good Guys, but the individual roles players have could cause them to have a different goal.

I immediately think of the Tanner in One Night Ultimate (Werewolf) who is on the Villager team but wants to die, bless him.

Another important part is Social communication. This comes in the form of creating mistrust, either accidentally or deliberately. This is where a lot of the fun is more most people that like this genre.

This is also some of the reason people who do not like these games don’t like them. What do you say? How can you find out information? If you don’t know the game won’t be fun.

Finally, for now, the removal of Player Elimination. In Werewolf if you get lynched first you sit out. This has evolved into games like One Night Ultimate Werewolf where one lynching ends the game.

No sitting out for you.

Top Social Deduction Games

By BGG ranking as of April 2020. I haven’t included longer games like Battlestar Galactica (Which is the highest-ranked by genre) etc Just the shorter party-style games.

10 – A Fake Artists goes to New York

One of Two on this list I haven’t played yet. It’s from Oink games, plays 5-10 players in 20 minutes.

Here everyone knows what they need to draw except the fake artist who has no idea. Similar to The Chameleon.

Everyone will pass a sheet around and they draw one line in an attempt to draw the designated thing. The fake artist has the job of trying to fit in and draw the right thing, despite not knowing what they are drawing.

Sound really interesting. Not sure I’d prefer it over The Chameleon as words are more appealing to me. But I’ll give it a go and report back 🙂

9 – Not Alone

This is the other one I haven’t played yet and one I don’t know much about.

NOT ALONE is an immersive, thematic card game, where you use guessing, bluffing, hand management, and just a pinch of deck-building to achieve your goal, which is survival for the Hunted… or total assimilation for the Creature!

Sounds good!

2-7 players, 45 minutes from Geek Attitude Games.

8 – Spyfall

Everyone has a card dealt to them with a location on. Except one person has a card that just says “Spy”.

Players will ask each other questions giving answers. The job of the Spy is to try and give answers that will fit into the location while also trying to work out where they are.

It’s a good game spoiled by players being too coy. 3-8 players in 15 minutes from Hobby World.

Read my written review of Spyfall

7 – Bang: The Dice Game

This takes over from Bang: the Card Game which was pretty slow and not great.

The hidden roles are fun though. You basically have 3 teams: The Sherriff (Potentially with a deputy), The Outlaws and the lone Renegade.

The Sherrif needs to survive, the Outlaws need to kill the Sherrif and the renegade needs to kill the Sherrif but ONLY after both Outlaws are dead.

The dice game speeds things up with each roll of the dice potentially adding more Dynamite and more Arrows. Dynamite risks an individual turn ending prematurely and Arrows will eventually cause mass damage around the table.

It’s a good fun 15 minute game for 3-8 players from dV Giochi that has player elimination but the games short so it’s OK.

Read my written review of Bang: The Dice Game

6 – Coup

This is a game for 2-6 players plays in 15 minutes and is published by Indie Boards & Cards.

Players have face down card representing various powerful characters. Players take the actions of these characters, even if they are in their face down cards or not.

It’s up to the other players to take actions and call players out to try and eliminate the other players to be the last person standing.

Read my written review of Coup

5 – One Night Ultimate Werewolf

The long old classic game of Werewolf boiled down to one night. This removed the player elimination. It also takes the game from 60 minutes to 10.

It plays 3-10 players from Bezier Games and I’ve enjoyed it at every player count.

Read and Watch my reviews of the One Night Ultimate Games

4 – The Resistance

(See Number 1 :))

3 – Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

I played this at Essen 2015 when it was called CS-Files.

Here one player is the known ‘Forensic Investigator’ and one player is a Murderer known only to the FI. The Murdered has some cards with clues and weapons in front of them, they’ll let the FI know one of each.

Then the FI gives clues to all Investigators as to which weapon it is and which clue was found while the Murderer tries to ‘help’ by trying to push the blame onto the Investigators.

The FI gives clues in the way of boards which offer clues such as ‘Time of Day’ or ‘Type of Wound’. Very clever game.

This is basically The Resistance with extra steps. (So again, see number 1, sorry! 🙂

2 – Secret Hitler

The bad guys are Fascists, the good guys are Liberals but one of the Liberals is the Secret Hitler. How the game changes from The Resistance further is that rather than a leader picking a party, the leader picks 1 person and they will pick if the policy passes or not.

This is 5-10 players, 45 minutes from Goat, Wolf & Cabbage

Read my review of Secret Hitler

1 – The Resistance: Avalon

Set in the world of King Arthur. Everyone has a hidden role with a majority of the players will be a Loyal Servant of Arthur (LSoA) with the minority Minions of Mordred (MoM). Brief Overview:

Everyone closes their eyes and the MoM open their eyes and get to know each other. Then the MOM closes their eyes and sticks out their thumb and Merlin, an LSoA, will open their eyes and get to know who the MoM are.

Then players will choose a party to go on an adventure and players will vote if that party is allowed to adventure or not. If they do go on an adventure everyone will secretly add a ‘Pass’ or ‘Fail’ cards to a pile. These cards are shuffled and revealed and if 1 is a Fail the party fails and play continues. All successes the missions succeeded and play continues.

If the MoM get to 3 Fails or the LSoA get to 3 Passes they win.

If the MoM lose the Assassin can win the game for them anyway IF they can point out which player is Merlin.

There are other roles too but that’s the basics. One of my favourite social deduction games that I haven’t tired of playing since I started in the hobby. I love it.

Read How to Play The Resistance: Avalon and read my review

List of Social Deduction Games

Here is a list of the social deduction games (or adjacent similar games) I have reviewed. If you want to know what I think of them or want to discover a new game you maybe haven’t heard of, this list is for you:

• Battlestar Galactica
• The Chameleon
• Codenames
• Dark Moon
• Dead Last
• Deception: Murder in Hong Kong
• Don’t Mess with Cthulhu
• Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space
• A Game of Thrones Board Game
• Good Cop, Bad Cop
• Die Kutschfahrt zur Teufelsburg
• Deadwood 1876
• Love Letter
• Mafia De Cuba
• Mascarade
• Moneybags
• New Angeles
• Nosferatu
• One Night Revolution
• One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Vampire & Alien
• One Week Ultimate Werewolf
• Saboteur
• Secret Hitler
• Shadow Hunters
• Skull & Roses
• Spyfall
• A Study in Emerald
• Two Rooms and a Boom
• Werewords

Jesta ThaRogue