Games like Are You a Werewolf? and Mafia are far and away the most well-known and most popular of the “enemy among us” subgenre of party games. While certainly a big hit with quite a number of people, one of the biggest issues they face is that, in order to be at their most dynamic and interesting, they require a very high number of players (sometimes upwards of well more than a dozen, depending on the variant in question); the result is that these games are very popular for web forum play formats, since it’s much easier to wrangle that many people digitally than it is in person.
Of course, a side-effect of having a huge number of players is that the game itself can take quite a long time to play. I’ve been in games of Lupus in Tabula, a Werewolf variant, that have taken 90 minutes or more to get through a full game (not necessarily long by tabletop board game standards, but certainly by more casual party game standards). It’s probably not a huge surprise that the only times I’ve found that many people with that much time to spare have been at conventions–though it certainly makes for a great convention game for exactly that reason.
For those of us who don’t have a dozen or more friends and a house to fit them all in at the same time, game designer Don Eskridge brings us The Resistance, now in its Second Edition as of 2012.
Overview
The Resistance pits a group of 5 to 10 players against a tyrannical government in a vague futuristic dystopia. The titular Resistance seeks to pull off a series of missions that will hopefully bring said government down, but they risk being thwarted from within by spies that have infiltrated their ranks. Players must therefore properly deduce where the other players’ loyalties lie in order to pull these missions off successfully–or to ensure that a fellow spy is sent along with the team to sabotage their efforts.
The base game leaves out the unique roles and abilities that some characters in Werewolf or similar games get, but the mission structure and voting mechanic provide more context clues for deductive reasoning, allowing astute players to ferret out who may or may not be a spy, and allows persuasive players to convince others of certain pieces of evidence in order to accuse (or frame) someone of betraying the group’s interests.
Included in the Second Edition of the game is also a mini-expansion called The Plot Thickens, which add ‘Plot Cards’ to the mix, arming players with other means of obtaining information about their cohorts beyond simple pattern analysis and deductive reasoning.
Gameplay
The basic gameplay structure in The Resistance is simple: at the beginning of the game, players are given cards in secret that indicate whether they are members of the Resistance or spies loyal to the government. Each round, a team must be assembled to attempt a mission against the government, with the entire group voting on whether a given proposed team should be given the go-ahead or not. If the proposed team is okayed, the selected individuals contribute cards in secret to determine whether they carry out the mission or sabotage it.
Unlike Werewolf, there is no ‘narrator’ or otherwise impartial player overseeing the game; upon loyalty cards being passed out at the beginning, all players close their eyes, and the spies then open them so that they know who their fellow spies are. And there are quite a number of spies, too–just under half of the total number of players in most cases. Eventually, the Resistance needs to field larger and larger teams, and with so many spies in their midst, knowing who can (and can’t) be trusted becomes paramount.
The game consists of a maximum of five total rounds, with each such round representing one of the missions the Resistance needs to carry out in order to bring down the government. At the start of each round, the current Leader (initially chosen at random, and moving clockwise from there) nominates a team to go on the current mission. Leaders are allowed to nominate themselves as potential team members. All players then select a token that reveals their vote of either ‘Approve’ or ‘Reject’ for the proposed team; these are chosen in secret, but revealed publicly and simultaneously once all players have decided. A majority vote means that proposed team goes ahead; otherwise, the Leader token moves to the next player in the rotation, and a new team must be proposed. If at any point the Resistance fails to approve a team after five voting rounds for a given mission, they have missed their window of opportunity, and the spies win the game.
Once a team has been approved, each team member selects a card marked either ‘Success’ or ‘Fail’ (Resistance members must chose ‘Success’). These cards are mixed up to prevent knowing who played which card, and then revealed to the group; for most missions, a single ‘Fail’ card causes the mission to fail, though in games with 7 or more players, two ‘Fails’ are required for the spies to sabotage the fourth mission (since the number of members per mission changes based on the total number of players as well as what mission is being attempted).
The Resistance wins the game if they can successfully carry out three missions before the spies can cause three missions to fail.
Production
The First Edition of The Resistance simply uses a deck of cards for its components, along with a sheet detailing the number of team members per mission for any given number of players. The Second Edition, however, is a fully boxed game that includes cardboard tokens for Leaders, team members, voting, and tracking progress (for voting rounds and mission success or failure).
Also included in the Second Edition are three double-sided play mats, with each side detailing the number of spies and the number of team members per mission for a given permutation of players (five through ten) along with a tracker for voting rounds and a reminder if the fourth mission requires two Fails on the spies’ part. These play mats are adorned with art that helps set the tone of the setting well enough, depicting the future world in a way that’s reminiscent of Star Wars’ Galactic Empire meets Blade Runner meets Shadowrun.
The artwork on the cards (for the Resistance/Spy loyalty cards, as well as the included expansion’s Plot Cards) is fitting as well, depicting characters instead of locations, with a somewhat generic but still competent and appropriate ‘futuristic spy’ theme. The cards themselves are of good quality, easy to shuffle while also being quite sturdy so as to prevent accidental marking from bends or wrinkles.
Thoughts
Perhaps the biggest advantage of The Resistance over similar games is this: no one is ever eliminated from play. A major drawback of Are You a Werewolf? and its ilk is that players chosen as victims early on are essentially removed from the game, with only minor impact on play thereafter, and in most variants are barred from even speaking after being “killed.” In The Resistance, players are never technically “outed” until after the game is won or lost, so everyone is able to participate in voting, table discussion, and missions for the duration, allowing even known (or at least presumed) spies to influence the table and potentially protect their allies.
The game also plays much more quickly than similar titles, with even a long game rarely taking more than 30 minutes total, allowing for multiple games to be played in a session, or for the game to be played quickly as part of a larger game night or such.
The two-part structure of each mission–voting for a team, and then team members determining the success or failure of the mission–helps provide and highlight all of the crucial information players need to successfully identify the spies in their midst (at least in games not using the expansion rules). Explaining one’s team selection and watching voting patterns becomes a key part in establishing or discerning someone’s loyalty, and as the stakes get higher (with later missions requiring larger teams), ensuring that a spy hasn’t been selected to partake in a given mission becomes the Resistance’s top priority. Since the spies lack the numbers to control the approval vote on their own, sowing dissent in order to delay mission approval (either to later set up a team with spies included, or to potentially draw things out to the game-ending fifth voting round) becomes a valid and potentially very powerful tactic for them.
The Plot Thickens expansion adds more ways for players to directly learn about someone’s loyalty, as well as to force players to either vote in the open or to reveal their vote first, before anyone else. While this does eliminate the “pure” deductive reasoning from the game, it may be preferable for some play groups who enjoy having more tangible effects on the game over simply relying on deduction, deception, and persuasion in the voting process and mission assignments. It’s worth noting, however, that the creators themselves recommend getting a handle on the base game first before trying the expansion, so it’s worth experiencing both and seeing which version of the game better suits you and your group’s play style.
Conclusion
PROS:
– plays more quickly than similar games, and requires fewer people
– lack of player elimination ensures that no one is “kicked out” of the fun
– base game allows for pure strategy with no randomness
– good production quality, especially for the current edition of the game
CONS:
– 5-player minimum is still somewhat high for most board games
– players with poor deductive reasoning skills can be easily exploited by persuasion and fast-talk
– expansion potentially changes the nature of the game entirely, which may be off-putting to some players
Kevin Frane
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