Secret Hitler: a phenomenal social deduction board game developed by Goat, Wolf, & Cabbage. The game caters to an audience that craves for political intrigue, and provides a compelling experience in both the spinning of a web of lies as well as in its unweaving. The liberal team will find themselves fighting random chance in trying to deduce their own teammates, while the fascist team is sure to take full advantage of that randomness in causing chaos.
Secret Hitler pits liberals versus fascists in a classic zero-sum team competition, and ensures that liberals always have a simple majority at game start. Both parties may win by completing their policy track, which entails the successful passing of 6 policies (an important resource) for their respective team. Three random policies are drawn by the president (a role that rotates around the table) who removes one and gives the remaining two back to the democratically-elected chancellor. Both teams have one extra win condition: the fascists may win if Hitler is elected chancellor after at least 3 fascist policies have been passed, and the liberals may win by killing Hitler, which can be done by the President upon both the passing of the 3rd and 4th fascist policies.
In terms of conflict, Secret Hitler presents two difficult dilemmas. One such dilemma falls on the president to deal with when presenting the chancellor with policy options: “should I give the chancellor a choice between a fascist and a liberal policy, or not?” The answer is quite simple if the president is a non-Hitler fascist – if at least 2 of the 3 policies are fascist, give the chancellor no choice and proceed to frame them. For liberals and Hitler, however, the dilemma is a bit more nuanced. Liberals looking to test a given player for the first time may seek to provide a choice, despite the risk of a fascist policy being enacted. Later in the game, social deduction via this method arguably becomes too great a risk for the liberals to bear, making the act of providing the chancellor with two liberal policies a much more compelling option. For Hitler, specifically in games of seven or more players (meaning Hitler does not know who his teammates are) presenting the chancellor with a choice between liberal and fascist gives Hitler an opportunity to buy credibility with the liberal team; further would Hitler be able to deduce one of his own teammates should they choose the fascist policy. If there are 4 or 5 liberal policies at play, however, Hitler may want to strongly consider providing the chancellor with no option but to pass a fascist policy – putting his credibility in jeopardy. But of course, if only one more policy is needed for the president’s respective team to win, it would make perfect sense to provide the chancellor with no option.
The second dilemma of note is a burden for the entire government to bear, and involves the decision of who should be the next chancellor. A new chancellor must be elected after every round, and after three fascist policies are in play, it becomes a critical matter for the liberal team to choose wisely. The only efficient method I’ve found for determining who should be chancellor requires a thorough vetting process to begin at game start, which likely gives the liberal team enough time to vet at least two candidates. One vetted candidate does not suffice, as one who was chancellor previously cannot be re-elected in the next round. This mechanic, in turn, necessitates a large degree of social deduction by the liberal team if they hope to win (as they must deduce at least two liberals!). Players may then take into account the policy record of a candidate before casting their vote, giving players an avenue through which to make some degree of an informed decision. What truly makes this game shine is the social deception that the fascists must employ in order to manipulate these voting records – providing previously vetted liberals with no choice but to pass a fascist policy is a great way to sow the seeds of doubt and waste liberal resources. Non-Hitler fascists may further find success in convincing the liberals that they’re a safe bet with a couple of liberal plays, before burning their credibility in order to get 1-2 fascist policies on the board. It’s also always a surprise to see a disguised Hitler with a spotless voting record secure the chancellery!
Because the fascists are guaranteed to be outnumbered at game start, they must expertly craft lies in order to obfuscate Hitler’s identity. A very effective strategy was employed in one of my games, which takes advantage of the fact that the other fascists are aware of Hitler’s identity at game start: Hitler’s underlings, when presented by a liberal president with the option to pass a liberal or fascist policy, consistently chose fascist policies to undermine their own credibility. The liberals consistently passed this test by choosing the liberal policy – and so did Hitler! In fact, after 3 fascist policies had been enacted, Hitler possessed the strongest anti-fascist vitriol out of anyone. The fascists, despite knowing Hitler was on their team, attacked Hitler relentlessly and accused him of being fascist himself. These accusations fell on deaf ears, as the liberals took into account the accusers’ policy history and deduced that anyone the fascists accuse of being a fascist must themselves be a liberal. Taking full advantage of the situation, Hitler successfully lobbied for the president to execute a fascist, and when the fascist’s allegiance was revealed – which is required after an execution is performed – every liberal was sure that Hitler must be trustworthy. Hence, by building his own credibility at the expense of his teammates, Hitler was able to find himself in the position of Chancellor and clenched a win for his team.
All in all, Secret Hitler does a remarkable job at keeping its players in a state of uncertainty while providing just enough information for players to make somewhat informed decisions. After all, there’s little fun to be found in a social deduction game if the players have no information with which to deduce; it’s even less fun to have too much information, which makes for an outcome that’s more or less certain. In comparing Secret Hitler with One Night Werewolf specifically, one can find appreciation for the former’s masterful balance between too much information and not enough – having played ONW a lot during the pandemic, it came to the point where my friends and I could more or less run down a checklist to get a decent idea of who the werewolf was. This isn’t really possible in Secret Hitler in any capacity, as there is always a random chance that a previously vetted liberal president can draw three fascist policies, thereby placing them under suspicion regardless of what information was obtained about them previously. This is a very clever way to incorporate randomness into a game, and lends a hand in keeping players at the edge of their seats. I will certainly find myself coming back to this game in the future!
