Social deduction card game about office drama

Nope! The rumor cards (the cards which identify you as either a gossip or a friendly) are dealt face down to each player.

Almost!

Any player who is not a revealed gossip may vote provided they have a card in their hand. This means that revealed friendlies can vote, too.

Exactly! And you mentioned a good point about convincing others. That's one thing that makes the game not so easily broken. For instance, accusations on turn 1 shouldn't make sense. At best you have a 38% chance of picking the right person. Then you have to convince people to go along with it b/c if they submit cards and you're wrong, it should slant heavily in favor of the gossips. And of course, if someone tries that on turn one, it *should* get voted down, and then the accuser should be accused *next* turn. Etc. So there's some self-policing there.

But your point is a good one. It's a very strong play for a gossip to accuse a friendly, get it voted through, and then convince everybody your actions were logical enough to not get yourself accused next turn!

In our play test, we had some lovely (and hilarious) back and forth over moments like these.

There are very few times were players are forced to make an action. Voting is no exception. Players have the option to vote, just as they have the option to play cards at the water cooler. The rules generally state that a player "may" do something and/or use the language "up to one card" suggesting that no cards may be played.

Some examples:
- you can go to the water cooler and not play anything (for instance, the Networker may go to exchange a card in his hand with another player; or the office flirt may go to peak at a card in someone's hand. The office flirt could, then, slow down a gossip who went to the water cooler with 1 card even if she, herself, has non)
- you can abstain from voting
- you can go to HR and not make an accusation
- you can go to the manager's office and not exchange a card (though this will look uber suspicious)

Thank you so much for your feedback. I am going to Kickstart this game eventually, but you are more than welcome to try out the print-n-play version!

First, thanks so much for your feedback. It's really helpful and means a lot that you would take the time to help me out here.

Do you mean during an accusation at HR? If so, abstaining makes sense (to me) here since it's possible to have gossip cards that don't let you vote in the direction you want. For instance, if you want to have the accused person reveal their card but you only have negative gossip cards, you shouldn't be forced to throw one. And this is important because the distribution of negative positive cards is about 60/40 in favor of negative cards. So some players will be forced to abstain in that instance (and that makes it a little easier I think for gossips to stay hidden).

If you are talking about at the water cooler (which your clarification suggested even though the water cooler technically isn't a "vote" but sure, it's the same mechanic so whatever), I think it adds a strategic element. For instance, on a final turn or something you could go to the cooler, claiming to be a good guy (but actually be a gossip), and have only positive cards. You don't play a card, morale goes down. You laugh and win. Etc.

As a friendly, you probably always want to play a gossip card at the water cooler. Maybe you could argue the Networker with his card exchanging ability could go to the water cooler to STOP a suspected, but not revealed gossip, from playing a card by exchanging it.

The morale tracker has been a thorn in my side... The only thing I'm sure of is that morale needs to be easily visible by all players. It might give something away if someone on the far end of a table asks you what the morale is. I wanted cards with giant numbers on them for that reason. But I very much dislike that it takes up 5 cards in my tuck box...

I need to clarify that rule: the active player must also be at the water cooler. Does that address your issues with the reveal ability?

It's very strategic to me: a gossip could lie about "only having negative cards" to get out of going to the water cooler when he/she is the active player. Further, the gossip might want to go to the water cooler when someone is playing overly "friendly" etc.

Could you elaborate on this a little more? Under the current rules (which I clarified above where the active player must also be at the water cooler), *every* friendly should be incentivized to go to the cooler when they are the active player (since that is the only time they can reveal themselves).

One of the issues in GOSSIP is that the cards are stacked against the friendlies. That fact plus the fact that morale decreases each turn means that the friendlies need a way to turn the tide. That's what the reveal is all about. If you can somehow convince enough people to put enough positive cards such that you can reveal yourself, the friendlies can get an edge. Regardless of the number of players in a game, there are more friendlies than gossips, so this is an achievable feat.

I think showing your card to another player adds an awesome amount of fun to the game though and I am right now thinking of ways in which this could happen.

As an aside: the office flirt's original ability was that she could look at a player's Rumor card, but that turned out to be too powerful (suggesting that seeing another player's rumor card might be an overpowered part of the game... but the jury's still out on this!).

Perhaps I can modify some of the gossip card abilities such that one or two of them allow you to show your card to another player under some circumstances.

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

Thanks again for the insights! I hope you keep them coming!

Hmm I think I was too confusing. Let me clarify the active player thing.

The active player is simply the person who gets priority that turn. Each turn, the active player becomes the person to the left of active player from the previous turn (like poker). The active player has priority over every other player. The player to the left of the active player has priority over everybody to his left, etc. So if several people try to go to the boss's office, priority goes to the active player then proceeds clockwise.

The rule with the water cooler should have said that "if the active player is at the water cooler and the result is 4 or more, he/she can reveal their gossip card."

The only potential issue with showing another player a card rather than revealing, is that the game might slant too much towards gossips. For instance, you could, as a gossip, play the game as if you were a friendly and *eventually* the gossips will win as the cards eventually stack up against you. That is, morale decreases by 1 each turn. You can't keep up with that given that 60% of the cards are negative.

But I actually don't mind that. It just means that I need a way for the friendlies to make progress. I think showing other players your card might not be progress enough.

Put another way, if every person played as a friendly, it still might take a long time before the gossips are found without some sort of mechanic whereby a friendly can announce who they are.

The showing of a rumor card in itself, though, is potentially hilarious - and I'm still thinking of ways to incorporate it.

But keep this going! I'd love to hear more about your idea. How do you see a game progressing if "everybody plays like a friendly" under your rule change idea?

Avalon, yes. Nosferatu, no. I've also played other traitor games (Shadows over Camelot, Battlestar Galactica, etc.) where I learned the value of just a little bit of information.

I think I'm sold on the showing of the card. I've reduced the water cooler gossip requirement from 4+ to 3+ which I think is a commensurate with the amount of difficulty given the now not-so-strong reward of showing another player rather than revealing.

I've also nixed the Reveal ability altogether. The premise of the game is inference with limited information. Showing the card plays on that theme a lot more than the powerful "reveal" ability.

Thanks so much for the help! If you have more ideas, I'd love to hear them!

The rules have been uptaed on the GOSSIP website:
http://handsomegames.wix.com/gossip

I love these. I don't think I can use the word "secretary" these days. You get funny looks. Like calling a parking enforcement official a meter-maid.

I think I'm going to mull through these. I may offer them as stretch goals on the KS campaign for now as I've already gone through the painstaking (but enjoyable) process of balancing the characters I have currently.

But I love these ideas.

You should have received an update from Kickstarter, but just informing you that I've done away with the superfluous art assets and cut my pledge goal down from 6k to 1k.

I've also reduced the duration to 15 days.

Thank you all for your support.

The Kickstarter funded successfully!

We're excited to get Gossip shipped out and begin work on our next game(s).