Secret Hitler: My Reflection on Trust, Power, and Human Nature
I played Secret Hitler for the first time during Monday’s office hours. Because the rules looked quite complicated at first, I didn’t join right away. Instead, I stood by and observed the first round. After I understood how it worked, I finally joined the second game.
At the beginning of the game, everyone is randomly assigned a hidden identity. As the game goes on, players have to carefully observe each other’s words and actions to find out who is a friend and who is an enemy. As someone who has rarely played this kind of bluffing game, I noticed a change in my own communication style. When I didn’t fully understand what was going on, I preferred to stay low-key and quiet. However, once I became familiar with the rules, I was much more willing to actively express my stance, both through my words and my actions. I began to speak up to win the group’s agreement and actively tried to become the Chancellor to secure interests for my team. I wanted to influence the direction of the game, rather than just having a follower’s mindset.
The design of the Chancellor role in this game is very interesting to me. Although passing a new policy requires both the President and the Chancellor, the Chancellor actually plays a much bigger role in psychological strategy. You have to win the current President’s trust, but you are also the one who secretly decides which final policy gets enacted. Therefore, getting this position gives you a much better and more engaging gameplay experience.
Since we only played one round, I am not sure what different situations would happen if we played more rounds. However, my feeling from this game is that as time goes on, Fascist policies are naturally more likely to pass because there are more of them in the deck (11 Fascist policies in total). As the Fascist track progresses, the mechanics give the President more and more power, such as investigating player cards or executing citizens, which gives the Liberals more disadvantage and pressure.
For me, this game highlights a profound ethical reflection. It is really a game about trust mechanisms under a high-tension situation with huge power imbalances. It tests human nature by forcing us to answer a difficult question: when resources are limited, who do you choose to trust? and what’s people’s reaction to dictatorial powers.
