One board game that I have been trying to get better at is Coup. As a bad liar, I particularly struggle in this game since I would argue that one of its main appeals involves psychological manipulation and deception among the players.
In terms of mechanics, each player is randomly dealt 2 cards facing down at the beginning of the game. Each player can look at their two cards which each represent a role: Duke, Assassin, Captain, Ambassador, or Contessa. Each of these characters can perform their own unique action on their turn, but there are also general actions all characters can play. I will not go into the details, but you are trying to eliminate other players by killing both their characters and be the last one standing. Since other players do not know your characters, you can claim to be any role you want. However, if you perform an action specific to a character and someone calls your bluff, you will lose a character. If you told the truth, they will lose a character.
These mechanics involving cards that represent unknown roles build mistrust among players as you all work independently or perhaps as allies to figure out who has which characters. This sense of mistrust and suspicion of deception or manipulation is especially fun for me since it brings in a psychological component of how well you know the people you are playing with. For example, if you know a friend’s eye twitches when they lie, you can use that to your advantage in the game. I love when games incorporate more personal elements like this as well as deception which you would not normally get away with in the real world. Games transcend boundaries in somehow making manipulating and lying to your friends completely okay and fun.
