Secret Sith is an online* iteration of Secret Hitler (originally designed by Max Temkin, Mike Boxleiter, and Tommy Maranges) that transports players into the Star Wars universe to fight with the Rebels or stand with the Sith. As a fantasy world, Secret Sith expands the target audience of Secret Hitler (13+) to younger and older individuals who might find the world of Star Wars more inviting (e.g., imagine how hard it would be for players from European countries like Germany to inhabit the Fascist role in Secret Hitler).
The mechanics are near identical to other iterations of the game. Each player is given a role card (Loyalist or Separatist), with the Separatists knowing each other but the Loyalists not knowing anyone’s allegiance. No one knows who the Sith Lord Palpatine is. Loyalists win if five mandates are enacted or if Palpatine is executed while Separatists win if they enact six mandates or electing Palpatine Supreme Chancellor after enacting three mandates. The game favors the Separatists given that there are more (11 versus 6) Separatist than Loyalist mandates in the deck. This mechanic injects a sense of urgency into the game since Separatist mandates will ultimately be enacted. Two other mechanics, role cards and voting cards, work together to produce the dynamics and aesthetics of the game.
Role cards assign players their allegiance between being Loyalists or Separatists. Players keep these cards hidden creating an atmosphere of suspicion from the start of play. From the beginning, then, players work to figure out the allegiance of each other all while they have to vote for Supreme Chancellor. This vote is crucial since it is the Chancellor that decides which mandates to enact (chosen from two given to them by the Vice Chair). The Supreme Chancellor can lie about which mandates they were handed, therefore retaining the secrecy and intrigue inherent in the game which further strengthens the zero-sum nature of the game.
The vote cards are important to the game since voting is one of the rare instances when players get a peek into the roles of the other players. Especially as more Separatist mandates are enacted, it becomes clearer who is Separatist and who they are trying to get elected as Supreme Chancellor. Voting inheres social deduction since players must consider the hidden nature of the Separatists and therefore risk trusting the enemy. For Loyalists, this is perhaps the most stressful part of the game since downstream acts are predicated on the vote.
The relationship between the role cards and the vote cards points to competition as a core aesthetic of the game. However, Secret Sith emphasizes the fantasy aesthetic since it builds off the popular, fully developed fantasy world of Star Wars. By changing the context of the premise, the game developers stressed the fantasy elements of Star Wars which might have increased attraction from a niche, though not small, population who loves the world first created by George Lucas. Specifically, the embodiment of certain role cards extends the narrative of Star Wars and injects players into a fantasy realm.
The fact that the team vs. team competition at the core of Star Wars is well known helps advance this narrative as well. The relative ease players have in putting themselves into this popular universe augments the competition and thus the tension that characterizes the state of play. In a very small way, then, Secret Sith could be considered by some players as a game of expression.
Secret Sith exemplifies a game of social deduction through integration of mechanics and thematic elements. By immersing players in a known fantasy world—in which the teams are well-developed—the game invites them to partake in the fantasy. The well-developed nature of the Star Wars universe means that players can be even more invested in the competitive aesthetic that defines games like Secret Sith. I think the transformation of this premise from Mafia or Secret Hitler is more successful at producing a certain set of dynamics and aesthetics despite almost identical mechanics to the other iterations.
*As seen on Reddit, fans of Secret Sith have made their own board games.
