Introduction
Secret Hitler is a game produced by Goat, Wolf, & Cabbage LLC for groups of 5-10 adults. It is set in 1930’s Germany in the political spotlight of ferreting out fascists amongst a majority liberal population. Of the fascists, one is named Hitler. Each round, a president and chancellor are selected for a chancellor to pass a card from the president’s selection of two cards from a random draw of three. The liberals seek to pass enough liberal cards or vote out hitler to win. The fascists seek to pass enough fascist cards, vote in hitler after a certain number of fascist cards, or possess a majority of the population.
Central Argument
Secret Hitler’s nature as a team-competitive game with hidden roles that allows for asymmetric teams and multilateral deception has mostly highlighted my willingness to observe before acting in a group. While the game is heavily dependent on interpersonal actions and reactions in the game, I often try to dissociate from discourse, giving me more time to react and think. Being quiet in a dialogue-heavy game often carries a connotation of being guilty or fascist, but this is mostly baseless as it mirrors my natural behavior as a person.
My quietness in games conveys my tendencies to react to conversation rather than control conversations. I often do not react when others accuse me of being fascist or pass a fascist card. In either positions of chancellor or president, a lack of a response is a good mask for both liberal and fascist roles. Every single mechanism of the game is dependent on interpersonal reactions, to what they say, what they do, and what they believe in. By not conveying, I am able to listen to more people while saying quite literally less.
The concept of quietness in conversation being abnormal or suspicious is not constrained to Secret Hitler, but is rooted in natural human behavior. Quietness can indicate an unwillingness to participate in conversation, breaking the social norm of conversations to engage. Additionally, it conveniently allows for one to think and analyze conversations more, implying a strategic silence that may indicate hidden motives. This behavior is seen in many bluffing games, such as Poker or the card game BS. When users give a blank reaction, this can be plausibly interpreted as ambiguous. This ambiguity works well in my favor, as I am not the best at deceit and allows for me to be less readable rather than otherwise an open book.
The game’s emphasis on emotional and logical states of actions and reactions and my overall weakness in controlling them makes it such that I double down on my passiveness and choose to not express them at all.
Analysis
The game is practically perfect. Secret Hitler is a game that I hold dear to my heart because I played it almost everyday when I was a freshman starting out at Stanford. The openness to the game allows for strategies of lying outright to convince others to go against otherwise liberals. Fascists are expected to act as liberals, but liberals can also act as fascists to confuse Hitler. A strategic self-reveal of a fascist can give a false sense of security if they had previously aligned themselves with a liberal. It reads very well into the Us vs Them conflict, yet nobody really knows.
The game is otherwise quite simple. Hidden roles, investigations, and killings all introduce paranoia that naturally feeds and excites the game. It is less so a game for the sake of a game, but rather mirrors suspicions and paranoia in real life. The most compelling element of the game is the natural behavior of people in general.
Ethics Response
Lying is an immoral action in real life. However, games are not real-life. Thus, lying is not necessarily a bad thing in games. Arguably in these bluffing games, lying is the correct action.
Morality of actions can be viewed in how they place themselves in social norms and contexts. In games, social norms are re-established within the magic circle of the game, wherein players follow the boundaries and rules of the game and follow game mechanics to interact with each other. When people say games allow you to experience a new world separate from reality, it is because they are separate from reality. Life goals, current roles, and rules of life are suspended in a game. In bluffing games, it is normal to lie.
So in summary, lying in games where everyone is expected to lie is not a moral transgression. If everyone is expected to lie, is that really lying? To lie is to intentionally deceive. If deception is expected, it is not good deception. Furthermore, in a game to have fun, there is no strong consequence to lying as games are defined to be low-stakes.
Evidence
Secret Hitler with Stanford Dragon Boat
(I was silent for a lot of the game to not be sussed out as I was fascist. This kinda worked, because I am still pretty readable despite trying not to be readable. Someone said i was sus bec i was quiet. And then i said i would be quiet even if i was liberal. Everyone unanimously decided that i am always sus. Across three rounds, I got killed twice.)
