Advice on mechanism to act secretely

Give each player an infinite supply of action cards.
Oh... hmm... on to more useful suggestions.

Assume that each player has the same number of action cards in each deck, and that they are consumed at a predictable rate (i.e. one per turn). Once all action card decks are empty, sort the discard pile into the separate decks and place each deck face down. Rearrange the decks on the table so that nobody knows which deck is which.

Option 1: Randomly allocate each player X decks, which need not be the same ones that they had previously. Depending on the rest of your game this may or may not make sense.

Option 2: Take turns to look at one of the decks. If it belongs to you keep it, otherwise put it back without showing anyone. Attentive players will be able to learn a bit of the secret information, but not all of it.

Regards,
kos

How about players select a card, put it face down, then put everything else into the same discard pile? Cards are played, actions resolved, played action cards are discarded, then all the cards in the discard are shuffled together and new hands are sorted and dealt.

Some more clarification is needed.

How much secrecy do you need? How many NPCs are there? Which is the more important secret–– that a specific player is controlling a specific character, or merely that a specific character is being controlled ?

Which of these situations is the closest to describing your game?

– 4 Players controlling 3 characters each, for a total of 12 characters
(i.e. everyone is being controlled, but no one is totally sure exactly who's who)

– 4 Players controlling 2 characters each, with a few character uncontrolled?
(i.e. no character is more likely to be a controlled by a specific player than controlled by no one)

– 20 Characters, with 3 players controlling 3 players each, and the rest uncontrolled?
(i.e. no character is more likely to be be controlled by any player than controlled by no one, and each player would be at a loss to pick out the controlled characters from the lot.

How many actions (per agent/leader) are we talking about here?

Low-tech prototype way using only cards:

For example if you're playing with 4 players, 12 total Agents, and 12 different actions––

• Have 4 cards for each Agent, and divide them into sets of 12 (1-12), one set for each player.
• Do the same for the actions.
• Make sure these two types cards have different backs. In this case, let's say Agents are blue, and actions are red.

When deciding the actions for their Agents:

1) Players will always chose the 3 Agents they own and place those cards face down in front of them.

2) They will then choose the red-backed action cards and pair them with their Agents, face-down under the blue-backed Agent cards. They should then have three 2-card stacks in front of them.

3) Collect these stacks. Then, one player will cut the deck as many times as she chooses, but always so that a blue card is on top. This will keep Agent cards always directly above their selected action.

4) Reveal the paired cards from the top of the stack, and resolve each Agent's Action sequentially.

5) Then, shuffle together the used and unused Action cards, and deal out another set of 12 to each player. Shuffle together the used and unused Agent cards and deal out a set of 12 to each player. Then, go back to step 1.

Note: If you have enough cards for everyone to have 2 such sets of 24 cards, then 2 people can be shuffling and dealing the next sets while another 2 people are cutting (shuffling) the current set in step 3.

Other Note: This method was devised with the intention of accommodating an unlimited number of turns. If the number is small (say, 6-8) it might be more economical to simply give each player a stack of cards relating to each agent, which they slowly use up over the course of the game. This would eliminate the shuffling/dealing-new-sets step.

High-tech production way with punchboard––

Same basic idea, but with punchboard pieces and chits.

– Use a punchboard tile with a hole in it. When selecting agents, players choose a Action tile, and place an Agent chit in the hole. (Friction should hold the chit in place.) Then, shuffle the tiles together and reveal them one-by-one, with each action being resolved by the spy whose chit is in the hole.

This functionality is something that we did in I, Spy.

Hope that helps.

So let's say all actions (regardless whether they are same or different) are all the same color or have same icon as characters you control. If everyone throws in a card, someone can shuffle and play them out. No one knows the owners' colors or icons. Do the cards have to be directed exactly at someone? Can the cards simply play out in an order, with the strategy that as more cards play out, deduction begins to reveal players? Also, if player/character elimination is expected, can player shields be a possible component? Players can secretly track which character(s) is eliminated. Or can you put icons on the action. Cards to determine which other characters they can affect? What about if the characters choose in order from the available actions that have been played to the pile?

Also, look to Love Letter and Bang which have secret identities and action mechanics.

There's this game that's supposed to be a board game representation of a 2-player fighting video game. every turn, you place two cards face down on the table, indicating the kind of attack and the style in which it is done. The attack cards are the same for each character, but the style cards vary depending on the character you're playing.

You could do a similar thing: give each player a set of cards with linear directions (each hex direction and the "here" direction) and the action that is projected onto the next hex in that direction. They'll be holding about 13 cards at once (7 directions, 6 actions). Each player gets cards with a colored icon in the corner that indicates which token it applies to. You'd have to make sure that the direction that is "North" is clearly indicated on the board and on the cards.

As everyone takes their turn, you hand in your cards, and they are shuffled. (There's no issue with losing your cards because of the icons.) They're revealed and applied to each token in turn, according to some arbitrary mechanism of your choice.

The way that you get everyone's cards back to them is a little bit more difficult. The best method I can think of is to have all of the cards in the middle of the board or on a raised platform within reach of all players. Then, one by one, each color is called upon to retrieve their cards one at a time. This way, no player is revealed.

The downside, however, is that player make noise when they have to reach far for something. They would all have to sit within easy reach of the spot that the cards are placed. This means that the player count may have to be restricted to 4 or 5 at most.

An alternative is to use an electronic method, such as a smartphone app, which could anonymously assign colors and receive information for the "host" to show the rest of the group.