For this week’s critical play, I played Coup during game night. Coup is similar to our game design because it uses the core mechanic of hidden identity to produce mystery and intrigue throughout the play. Coup is a social deduction game intended for 2-6 players above the age of 13. Our group played with 5 players. Rikki Tahta designed Coup and originally released the game in 2012 through La Mame Games. The current publisher is Indie Boards & Cards. Coup is primarily a card game, although an online version also exists.
The game is fairly simple. Each player draws two character cards and must perform those two characters’ actions and counteractions or risk being caught and assassinated. Players can challenge behavior that they deem suspicious to reveal the player’s identity and assassinate their character. The last player with a living character wins.
One of the mechanics that I admired most about Coup was the opt-in approach to risk. Unlike other similar social deduction and bluffing games (I’m thinking of Mafia and the card game Bullshit), the gameplay does not require lying to win. Instead, lying and stealing are options players can choose to create more suspense and drama. Our game, Dealbreaker, requires a level of vulnerability in revealing information about what players value in their interpersonal relationships. Unlike Coup, we have not developed a mechanism for this process of sharing to be optional. As a result, Dealbreaker is much more fun to play with friends/people you are already comfortable disclosing your values to. In Coup, the opt-in approach to discomfort leads to a dynamic where players can bring their personal style and strategy to the game, giving the game a wider range of players and aesthetics, including fun through challenge (strategy), fun through fellowship (socializing), and fun through expression (individuality in approach). Coup also covers an impressive range on the player 2×2. Coup would likely be fun for achievers, killers, and socializers, unlike Dealbreaker, which relies on socialization.
I experienced the freedom Coup offers firsthand because in my first round playing, I felt self-conscious lying, so I just collected one token of income or performed my characters’ abilities each round until I had enough coins to “choose a player to lose influence.” Although I didn’t win, I felt comfortable playing the game and learning the rules through my conservative strategy, and my playmates, at the very least, learned that I’m a terrible liar. In the following round, I lied a couple of times without being caught, which absolutely increased the level of challenge, strategy, and suspense while decreasing the sense of fellowship. I loved that I had the power as a player to shift my own game experience — the magic circle absolutely felt magical here.
From a design perspective, the game could not be tighter. I love the simplicity of the materials and formal elements, the “cheat sheet” element for remembering the abilities of each role, and the straightforward logic of the game. The limited number of character cards enables players with more skill and experience in the game to count cards and attempt to determine roles throughout the game (at one point in the second game, after about five rounds, Akari said with exasperation “So I guess he’s still a ‘Duke…’” – we were all tired of distrusting each other at that point). I thought the simplicity and ease of the instructions were impeccable and reduced the barrier to entry for me as a first-time player. The design choices inspired me to pitch some pared-down rules for Dealbreaker (eliminating individual roles and instead working collaboratively), and our play test yielded much better results. Sometimes the simplest solutions really are the most engaging.
I have one major critique of Coup as it relates to Dealbreaker. While Coup is classified as a social game, it does not make abundant use of the relationship-building potential of games. Aside from the inherent proximity of playing a game together, Coup does not engage in any of the areas in Daniel Cook’s video “Game Design Patterns for Building Friendships.” Brief alliances begin to build a sense of reciprocity, but to win, players must eventually assassinate their allies. The game intentionally evades disclosure and vulnerability through its bluffing scheme and while the roles may be similar, none of them are prosocial or necessarily positive. In contrast, Dealbreaker strives to center all four of these features through reciprocal ranking of qualities, relatable prompts, and vulnerable explanation sessions. One mod I might consider for Coup to build its relationship-strengthening potential is a required alliance that players must maintain without knowing their ally’s roles. I wonder if this mechanic would allow for the temporary alliances to create more lasting solidarity.
Although we do not have an ethics question this week, I do want to take a moment to bring up a few ethical questions that arose for me during Coup. One is the representation in the cards’ faces. It struck me as an unexpected choice to draw human characters for only five roles. Although the roles appear to be relatively diverse in terms of ethnicity and gender, I wonder what the functionality of realistic faces is as opposed to fictionalized features, cartoons, or symbols. The only two women represented seem to fit a very stereotypical Eurocentric beauty standard that could be alienating for players who do not see themselves represented. For so few roles, I wonder if symbolic cards would feel more universal for all players. In a similar vein, I wondered about the necessity for the language about death, assassination, and killing. In the cheat sheet, some roles use the “lose influence” language, which I find more accessible and interesting.
