A little social deduction conversation game for 4 or more people.
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Disclaimer: This game is very half-baked, and it’s written with a notion of changing the kinds of social pressures and incentives of social deduction games, which I don’t tend to enjoy playing very much despite how academically interesting they can be.
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I don’t mean to alarm you, but the alien invaders have taken over the planet. It’s not as bad as it seems, I promise. They’ve solemnly pledged not annihilate life on Earth at all, opting instead to guide the wayward humans towards a more peaceful, cooperative, and ecologically responsible.
It’s a tall order, but if you ask me, we had our shot and we sort of fucked it, didn’t we.
Their reality warping engines have done a remarkable job at changing our societies dramatically. The problem is, all the people in these societies are still getting their roles straight, and the reeducation process to help us recall is the teensiest bit unpleasant.
Admittedly, they’ve been doing their best to restructure our societies in a way that parallels the ones we were previously accustomed to. But, also admittedly, they don’t have an especially strong grasp on what human civilization was really like. It’s been a little difficult to pick up what they’re putting down.
Basically, it’s sort of like we’re all cramming for tests, except those tests could happen at any moment during our waking lives and we may not know when they’re happening. Good luck out there.
You play as (mostly) humans attempting to assimilate into the new world order instituted by our benevolent new alien overlords.
Play proceeds in rounds. Each round, one person will play the supervisor, an alien neighbor disguised as a human who checks up on the resident humans to ensure that they’re adjusting properly.
The Supervisor operates a bit like a game master, both portraying the Supervisor character and determining how the game’s roles are arranged. You’ll get to choose how many Well-Adjusted Humans and how many Struggling Humans are in the group, so you’ll have some control over your deduction experience.
When you play the Supervisor, first determine how many Well-Adjusted Humans (red cards) and how many Struggling Humans (black cards) you would like to play with, at least one of each. then remove that number from the deck and shuffle them together. You might have:
Then, have each Human player take a card randomly and secretly look at it, without showing anyone else.