My team’s game, called Truth or Die, is a getting to know you and deception game where players answer personal questions across multiple rounds with a secret role they are assigned, either “innocents” or “liars.” Liars are supposed to lie about some of their responses and avoid being detected. At the end of each round players vote to eliminate someone they suspect. You can play it with any group of friends, but it is best when played with existing friends that might already know some details about each other.
In order to look more into how other deception games work, I played Coup, a bluffing game where players can lie about their roles and try to eliminate other players, with 2 other friends. It can be played with groups of 2-6 people (although I think at least 3 people is necessary for an interesting game), either of existing or new friends. It was created by Rikki Tahta, and is a physical card game, just like Truth or Die.
Mechanics and Dynamics
Coup is a turn-based game where bluffing is the main mechanism. Each player has two role cards which are hidden from other players and give specific powers like stealing coins or blocking actions. Players can claim any role on their turn and take that action, but others can challenge them. If caught lying, they lose a card. If not, the action proceeds and the player who called them out loses a card. If a player loses both their role cards, they are eliminated. The last player standing wins. Truth or Die revolves around question prompts that force players to reveal intimate facts about themselves. While Truth or Die also has a lying/bluffing mechanic, it is much more narrative and personal. Liars must make up answers to personal questions, making up a story that their friends would still believe about themselves. There are no tokens, coins, or specific actions.
Another contrast is what the player’s motivation is to deceive. In Coup, deception is purely strategic, since players lie to gain a better role and they also choose whether to lie or not. Theoretically, every single player could tell the truth the entire game. In Truth or Die, deception is much more emotional. A successful liar in our game has to create a memory and anticipate how others interpret authenticity. In addition, liars are assigned, so players have no choice about whether to lie or not, just about how they choose to do it.
In Coup, bluffing is also often brief and usually the same bluff does not continue on for the entire game. In Truth or Die, the liars are lying the entire game. You’re not just trying to spot a single lie, you’re trying to feel out inconsistencies in how someone talks about their life.
In Coup, players can be eliminated at any point (and many times, happens early on in the game). In Truth or Die, everyone plays at least until the end of the current round and if they are voted off, we are hoping that since rounds are so social and narrative-driven, players will stay emotionally engaged even after death. We definitely did not want players to feel excluded.
Overall Design Takeaways
I loved playing Coup, and especially teaching it to my friends who had never played it before, because it reminded me of the value of simplicity. The game’s rules are very simple, but it still creates interesting situations that differ every game. For Truth or Die, I think we should try to preserve that simplicity while also preserving the emotional storytelling. We don’t want the rounds to feel like just icebreakers. We want tension, stakes, and strategy, just like what Coup achieves with such relatively simple rules.
While both Coup and Truth or Die involve deception, they approach it in very different ways. Our game encourages creativity and storytelling, and Coup focuses more on manipulation.Our goal with Truth or Die is to create a social experience where even the truths can feel suspicious, and every player leaves having learned a little more about each other.
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