Coup – Rikki Tahta, La Mame Games
2-6 players, 14+ of age
Coup is a game that I actually tend to play with a group of my freshman dorm friends pretty much once a week – as a coterm, the game has really provided us with an opportunity to reconnect consistently in a way that we simply hadn’t done once we went our separate ways as undergrads. Although we started off playing the game individually, we quickly realized that, among other things, that there simply wasn’t enough information regarding the available cards to make it a worthwhile endeavor. This feels especially acute at the beginning of the game when there are a lot of people involved, it just feels that there are so many possible things that anyone can be that it’s hard to know who and what to call without just resorting to blind luck.
In response, we decided one time to split the game into teams, and I think that dynamic has significantly changed how we perceive the game. The game turned from this uncertain, boring slog to a game that feels like it can be figured out if you read your opponents just right, and that made the game a lot more interesting, such that since then we have never returned to individual play. I’ve thought on my own time about the changes that this has provided, and during a recent run of the game with my friends, I came to a couple of conclusions about what this change meant for our gameplay, why we enjoy it more, and what that says about design decisions.
Card Power Change
First and foremost, the ability to have more teams changes what benefits and risks a card holds, in a way that balances out the game more evenly. A great example of this is the Ambassador card. In a non-team version of the game, the power of the Ambassador really lies in the ability to potentially pick up cards that you didn’t have before. Sure, you get some idea of the cards available, but not really enough to say much more than you had before. Compared to the other cards, this then comes out to be the clear weakest of all the cards, especially in scenarios with more players where there are less cards out on the deck. But in the team version, all of a sudden the Ambassador card has a lot more power, because with the combined knowledge of your team you have a good idea of what is in the deck. Now, all of a sudden, bluffs are a little more risky because of what the person might have seen or not seen, and that makes the Ambassador a much stronger card, balancing out the set of powers more.
Bluffing
Even without the Ambassador, in general the ability to have teams enhances the game since bluffing is now more risky. If you can’t bluff as often, then you’re thinking more about the times where you actually bluff, and I think my friends and I have found that that makes the game more interesting. In individual play, bluffing is too easy, and that means that people can spam a good card (here, let’s say Duke) and no person has any idea of whether the first or the fourth Duke is the false one. On the other hand, if three people on the other team say Duke, and your team has two of the Dukes, then you have a good idea of what can happen. When bluffing is harder, then there’s pressure involved, and that makes bluffing more nerve wracking and catching a bluffer more euphoric.
File 1: A Typical Game of Coup, vs the Same Scenario in Teams
Design Decision
When thinking about the creation of the game, to be honest I could not really understand how the creators had missed out on this opportunity to make this game a lot more fun. The simple mechanic of adding teams changed this game from one where we play a couple of times and put it away to one that we play for hours on end. But I think that that actually gets to the crux of the issue. On the side of the box, it’s listed that the game is expected to take about 15 minutes per round. That’s surprising to me because the game has never taken 15 minutes for us, even when as a joke we put a 30 second timer. We spend, on average, 40 minutes on a game, and that’s usually because we’re debating calls with each other, or we’re trying to secretly tell our teammates what we have without alerting other teammates, or we’re not bluffing because we know we’ll get caught based on previous conversations, etc. It seems that the creators focused on creating the aesthetic of a game that works quickly and can be done quickly, whereas we play everything out because there’s so much involved for every single decision. Maybe that’s because our group of Stanford students who love figuring out odds and probabilities are the odd ones out, but based on our having played it consistently for over six months, I kind of doubt it. It feels like a massive missed opportunity.
File 2: Coup Box, with the gameplay time saying 15 minutes.
Ethics:
No, I don’t believe that lying in the context of a game is morally wrong. I think the important distinction is that in a game where bluffing is involved, lying is expected as part of the game. You can – in fact, you should lie if you want to win the game, and everyone playing understands that. that. When people know and accept that you may lie, and that it is their job to figure out that lie, then there’s no moral baggage involved since that’s the rules of the game. This is different from a scenario in real life, since there, people expect the truth from you when you say something.
