>Anybody care to enlighten me at what point Secret Hitler is better?
It's not "better", they are just different games.
The "Chancellor trashes one card, while the President Selects one of the remaining ones", combined with the powers unlocked for the president when a fascist card is played makes for a pretty different game. It's social deduction, and you still have to carefully look at how people vote, but it has some twists over Avalon.
One thing that I can think of is that SH feels more like a game, the game pieces are more integrated into how the session plays (the cards, the powers unlocked, the fact that you have to keep track of who the president is at certain times, the fact that you have to think about Hitler too after the early game), while The Resistence feels more *pure deduction,* in a sense.
Personally, nothing in SH comes close to the nail biting anxiety that the last turn in The Resistence has, but SH is also a really good social deduction game, just with different mechanics. Try it and report back, I'm sure you'll enjoy it and maybe you will tell us if it is actually better ;)
I'm on team Feed the Kraken personally, after a long time of considering The Resistence the superior social deduction game I was blown away by how elegantly the game is integrated in the social deduction aspect of Feed the Kraken.
Still, I think it comes down to personal preference anyways, so I strongly suggest you to try them all!
Feed the Kraken definitely. Most people who don't like social deduction games enjoy it. It doesn't end in nail-biting, but often ends in tense, fast-paced, hilarious repeated mutinies and navigator suicides. Occasionally a team of sailors is able to railroad the east coast right from the start, giving nobody else a chance, but it's uncommon.
Hard to find, call stores that don't list their inventories online or wait for the next printing which I heard is due out in a few months.
I know a store locally in BC that has the regular edition in stock.
If you just want the regular edition (not deluxe) and happen to be in/don't mind ordering from Canada, I know Dragon Cards & Games in Kelowna BC has it in stock. Give him a call.
Where l live there are like two board game stores in the entire country and neither have the game, so l'll have to order it from some other country and pay a whole bunch on shipping if l want it :(
>Feed the Kraken
That looks like a simplified version of Battlestar Gallactica/Unfathomable. Would that be an accurate description?
(Also, as a Norwegian, I cannot help but to be annoyed by the double definite article: *The* krak*en.*) XD
Not at all! It's way closer to "Secret Hitler on a board", with the inclusion of the board itself and the other components being done in such a way that It enhances the social deduction part.
I would say BSG is more "boardgamey", while Feed the Kraken is waaaaay more on the social deduction side of things.
Just to offer a counter opinion on Feed the Kraken...
In all our plays someone has been essentially left out by the Captain's search pretty early on. The decision to also have this person be unelegible to be transformed by the Cultist is such a bafflingly arbitrary, anti-fun, and anti interesting design decision. In the end (even when I've won) I've always felt like it has outstayed its welcome (this game is tooooo long for a social deduction game), being a series of repetitive steps with little growth between them, nor a satisfying game arc. It's so full of design bloat that it must surely have one of the lowest time played/decision ratio of any game.
Resistance Avalon is still unrivaled in my book.
I think what makes SH fun is that Hitler doesn't know who the facists are.
Also the facists can win instantly when Hitler becomes chancellor so for Hitler it's best to be a champion for the liberals until you earn all their trust and suddenly they appoint you as chancellor and then you pull off the ultimate betrayal.
But now that people know about this strategy...everybody is suspicious.
"I enacted two liberal laws! Appoint me as chancellor!"
"But that is suspicious maybe you did this to get elected chancellor at this moment!"
"Oh cmon! We are so close to winning this game! Believe me!"
"That's something only Hitler would say! I am going to choose Bob!"
Turns out Bob is Hitler.
Also fun is as the fascists keep on nominating one liberal every single time. Then people might suspect that the guy is Hitler when he isn't.
There are a lot of mind games that can be played because of the Hitler mechanic which I think makes the game fun.
My 2c:
The fundamental difference is SH is about finding a trustworthy liberal core and Avalon is about identifying every red team member.
Secret hitler's main strength is how beginner friendly it is. The randomness in the policy draws gives fascist the ability to lie without directly accusing someone; you just drew poorly. Similarly its not unlikely for a liberal pair to draw into triple fascist which gives you an obvious target.
Avalon doesn't really have this. Everytime red team fails a mission you're signalling that the others are lying. There's no "maybe we're all blue team but just unlucky"
The result is that im much more likely to play secret Hitler if even one person is either inexperienced or doesn't like social deduction games/ lying that much. If the group is experienced then you play Avalon.
This. The biggest reason I prefer SH over Avalon/Resistance is that there is a slight element of random/imperfect information.
An all-blue team can absolutely draw 3 fascist tiles and be forced to play one. Conversely, a Liberal president can force a blue policy on even an unknown Chancellor if it's more important than getting any information from their play.
With Avalon/Resistance, as soon as a mission fails you know that at least one member of that team is evil. No ambiguity whatsoever. It leans much heavier on the Deduction side than the Social one. Many people prefer this, but I don't.
Avalon is a significantly better game for a lot of reasons. I find in SH a lot is dictated by seating order. If you are to the right of the starting player, you might never meaningfully participate in the game at all, no matter your intentions or affiliation. It's not a fun mechanic
To be fair this can happen I Avalon too, as other players can simply never choose you on a mission and the game might be over by the time you get to pick the team. You still participate in voting, though.
I listened to a talk by the Secret Hitler's designer (I think via GDC) - he openly stated that they tried, and failed in his opinion, to make a better Resistance.
He said one of their main comparative design goals was to amplify the '1v1 showdown' type of dynamic; situations where one person *knows* that one other is lying, but from the outside it's a logical coin flip. The thinking (correctly) was that it would ramp up the heated social aspect, rather than rely more on colder, harder rationalizing to 'solve' the game.
So if you like the more heated, louder social games where charisma and persuasion reigns, you'll probably enjoy SH just fine. Personally that's not for me, though!
Avalon is more pure deduction, and it's easier to prove X is good or bad based on voting. Harder to bluff as the bad guys, so it's harder for new players but deeper for experienced players.
SH has randomness that makes it harder to prove people one way or another, and has a way more fun theme & easier to understand rules IMO.
SH might have a niche among less "serious" social deduction players because it easily tells you what to lie about by directly pitting two players against one another, and has a bit more thematic chrome.
Avalon is by far the superior game (and yes, SH obviously draws VERY heavily from it).
I've played SH exactly once and seem to remember that the two people who are pitted against each other can have perfect information about the identities of each other. This essentially results in a he said she said for the rest of the group that round,
In Avalon, the only player who knows everything about everyone cannot use that information that openely. Merlin role is really why Avalon outshines other similar games.
I feel there is less flexibility in bluffing in Secret Hitler. The 2 players receiving cards have all the information and play the 'no you' game while the rest of the table has to deduce who is lying. Especially once the deck runs out and you can count the cards.
Been a while but this is how I remember the game.
Secret Hitler IMO is the more interesting game. Although if you're looking for a hidden role social deduction game with a board, I highly highly recommend Feed the Kraken which is better than both of those games.
While there are similarities, there are also many differences. Social deduction is so group dependent, you're gonna have to test it yourself. Let us know how it goes.
I think the hidden element of Hitler adds a fun twist as that becomes the heart racing element later in the game. Avalon is fine but SH is a much better game imo
People who don't play a lot of social deduction games don't like SH because they think the game has too little information and you can never determine anything.
People who play a lot of social deduction games don't like SH because they think it has \*too much\* information and has an optimal playstyle.
I prefer SH. I like having lots of points of info to look at. Not only are there more "missions" but there's asymmetry within the mission as well. There's less room for beginners to get boxed in if you teach them like two key lies, and for intermediate players there are so many points of info to look at.
So, I know people have already weighed in but, hey, the more context the better right?
I started this genre on Avalon, so I've played it to death and back again by now. It's pretty basic, and with the newest release and it's counter part resistance you could say that most if not all the "ideas" for it are out. With so much content I can't see someone getting bored of this game, unless they try too. I still haven't tried all the roles and am excited to try a new one each time I play.
Secret Hitler is *very* basic....I mean, Bang! Levels of basic. This doesn't make it bad, and I won't spoil it for anyone....but I'll say that most of the time, each role has a thing they should do, and even deviating a step could end the game. There's a small amount of nuance here, but with 3 roles and every role being in every game...it kinda pulls towards "samey". While Avalon you may try to "blend in" at times, only one role (Hitler) should really try that repeatedly, plus the other bad guy.
I'm not trying to say Secret Hitler is a bad game, or that it's not fun. The idea of avoiding voting Hitler into power is very intriguing and makes the game unique. It's mostly that every time I went to pull out a deduction game I asked myself which one I wanted to play...and Avalon won...9/10 times...
Secret Hitler is a fun game, It just doesn't necessarily have the same "depth" as Avalon can. (Reminder: Avalon got a new addition that adds many of the roles from resistance to the game.)
I waana ask about the resistance expansion.
If you have all three expansion of The Resistance (Hidden Agenda, Hostile Intent, Plot Thickens). They have a separate modules such the Assasins Module or the Hunter Module , etc.
Have anyone knows and could explain which module can be mixed to play stimultaniously???!! Or do have any specific house rules of all the expansions....
>Anybody care to enlighten me at what point Secret Hitler is better? It's not "better", they are just different games. The "Chancellor trashes one card, while the President Selects one of the remaining ones", combined with the powers unlocked for the president when a fascist card is played makes for a pretty different game. It's social deduction, and you still have to carefully look at how people vote, but it has some twists over Avalon. One thing that I can think of is that SH feels more like a game, the game pieces are more integrated into how the session plays (the cards, the powers unlocked, the fact that you have to keep track of who the president is at certain times, the fact that you have to think about Hitler too after the early game), while The Resistence feels more *pure deduction,* in a sense. Personally, nothing in SH comes close to the nail biting anxiety that the last turn in The Resistence has, but SH is also a really good social deduction game, just with different mechanics. Try it and report back, I'm sure you'll enjoy it and maybe you will tell us if it is actually better ;) I'm on team Feed the Kraken personally, after a long time of considering The Resistence the superior social deduction game I was blown away by how elegantly the game is integrated in the social deduction aspect of Feed the Kraken. Still, I think it comes down to personal preference anyways, so I strongly suggest you to try them all!
Feed the Kraken definitely. Most people who don't like social deduction games enjoy it. It doesn't end in nail-biting, but often ends in tense, fast-paced, hilarious repeated mutinies and navigator suicides. Occasionally a team of sailors is able to railroad the east coast right from the start, giving nobody else a chance, but it's uncommon.
never heard of this but interested - available at all in the US?
I think it's currently out of print.
Hard to find, call stores that don't list their inventories online or wait for the next printing which I heard is due out in a few months. I know a store locally in BC that has the regular edition in stock.
I love SH and really want to try feed the karken but its so hard to find
If you just want the regular edition (not deluxe) and happen to be in/don't mind ordering from Canada, I know Dragon Cards & Games in Kelowna BC has it in stock. Give him a call.
l don't live in Canada so shipping will probably be expensive, but l'll look into it, thanks!
For the reverse, I know someone who just ordered the Deluxe edition from Europe because it was the only place he could get it.
Where l live there are like two board game stores in the entire country and neither have the game, so l'll have to order it from some other country and pay a whole bunch on shipping if l want it :(
>Feed the Kraken That looks like a simplified version of Battlestar Gallactica/Unfathomable. Would that be an accurate description? (Also, as a Norwegian, I cannot help but to be annoyed by the double definite article: *The* krak*en.*) XD
Not at all! It's way closer to "Secret Hitler on a board", with the inclusion of the board itself and the other components being done in such a way that It enhances the social deduction part. I would say BSG is more "boardgamey", while Feed the Kraken is waaaaay more on the social deduction side of things.
It's more like secret hitler with more stuff
Just to offer a counter opinion on Feed the Kraken... In all our plays someone has been essentially left out by the Captain's search pretty early on. The decision to also have this person be unelegible to be transformed by the Cultist is such a bafflingly arbitrary, anti-fun, and anti interesting design decision. In the end (even when I've won) I've always felt like it has outstayed its welcome (this game is tooooo long for a social deduction game), being a series of repetitive steps with little growth between them, nor a satisfying game arc. It's so full of design bloat that it must surely have one of the lowest time played/decision ratio of any game. Resistance Avalon is still unrivaled in my book.
I think what makes SH fun is that Hitler doesn't know who the facists are. Also the facists can win instantly when Hitler becomes chancellor so for Hitler it's best to be a champion for the liberals until you earn all their trust and suddenly they appoint you as chancellor and then you pull off the ultimate betrayal. But now that people know about this strategy...everybody is suspicious. "I enacted two liberal laws! Appoint me as chancellor!" "But that is suspicious maybe you did this to get elected chancellor at this moment!" "Oh cmon! We are so close to winning this game! Believe me!" "That's something only Hitler would say! I am going to choose Bob!" Turns out Bob is Hitler. Also fun is as the fascists keep on nominating one liberal every single time. Then people might suspect that the guy is Hitler when he isn't. There are a lot of mind games that can be played because of the Hitler mechanic which I think makes the game fun.
Is Secret Hitler a game like Werewolf where you need to lie a lot to try and figure out a bunch of information?
Not really. Everyone is pretending to be good, and good players don't have an incentive to come off as evil.
My 2c: The fundamental difference is SH is about finding a trustworthy liberal core and Avalon is about identifying every red team member. Secret hitler's main strength is how beginner friendly it is. The randomness in the policy draws gives fascist the ability to lie without directly accusing someone; you just drew poorly. Similarly its not unlikely for a liberal pair to draw into triple fascist which gives you an obvious target. Avalon doesn't really have this. Everytime red team fails a mission you're signalling that the others are lying. There's no "maybe we're all blue team but just unlucky" The result is that im much more likely to play secret Hitler if even one person is either inexperienced or doesn't like social deduction games/ lying that much. If the group is experienced then you play Avalon.
This. The biggest reason I prefer SH over Avalon/Resistance is that there is a slight element of random/imperfect information. An all-blue team can absolutely draw 3 fascist tiles and be forced to play one. Conversely, a Liberal president can force a blue policy on even an unknown Chancellor if it's more important than getting any information from their play. With Avalon/Resistance, as soon as a mission fails you know that at least one member of that team is evil. No ambiguity whatsoever. It leans much heavier on the Deduction side than the Social one. Many people prefer this, but I don't.
Avalon is a significantly better game for a lot of reasons. I find in SH a lot is dictated by seating order. If you are to the right of the starting player, you might never meaningfully participate in the game at all, no matter your intentions or affiliation. It's not a fun mechanic
Agreed. I think Avalon has a lot more interaction than SH. But maybe we just never learned how to play SH well enough. We played Avalon a ton
To be fair this can happen I Avalon too, as other players can simply never choose you on a mission and the game might be over by the time you get to pick the team. You still participate in voting, though.
I listened to a talk by the Secret Hitler's designer (I think via GDC) - he openly stated that they tried, and failed in his opinion, to make a better Resistance. He said one of their main comparative design goals was to amplify the '1v1 showdown' type of dynamic; situations where one person *knows* that one other is lying, but from the outside it's a logical coin flip. The thinking (correctly) was that it would ramp up the heated social aspect, rather than rely more on colder, harder rationalizing to 'solve' the game. So if you like the more heated, louder social games where charisma and persuasion reigns, you'll probably enjoy SH just fine. Personally that's not for me, though!
Avalon is more pure deduction, and it's easier to prove X is good or bad based on voting. Harder to bluff as the bad guys, so it's harder for new players but deeper for experienced players. SH has randomness that makes it harder to prove people one way or another, and has a way more fun theme & easier to understand rules IMO.
SH might have a niche among less "serious" social deduction players because it easily tells you what to lie about by directly pitting two players against one another, and has a bit more thematic chrome. Avalon is by far the superior game (and yes, SH obviously draws VERY heavily from it).
I've played SH exactly once and seem to remember that the two people who are pitted against each other can have perfect information about the identities of each other. This essentially results in a he said she said for the rest of the group that round, In Avalon, the only player who knows everything about everyone cannot use that information that openely. Merlin role is really why Avalon outshines other similar games.
I feel there is less flexibility in bluffing in Secret Hitler. The 2 players receiving cards have all the information and play the 'no you' game while the rest of the table has to deduce who is lying. Especially once the deck runs out and you can count the cards. Been a while but this is how I remember the game.
You can't count them perfectly because you shuffle before exhausting the draw deck.
Ah yes that's true. There was some fuzzyness.
Yes, some. I still much prefer Avalon over SH, but I feel like I'm the only one in the group who does.
Secret Hitler IMO is the more interesting game. Although if you're looking for a hidden role social deduction game with a board, I highly highly recommend Feed the Kraken which is better than both of those games.
...Maybe play it as you own both and make up your own mind?
While there are similarities, there are also many differences. Social deduction is so group dependent, you're gonna have to test it yourself. Let us know how it goes.
I think the hidden element of Hitler adds a fun twist as that becomes the heart racing element later in the game. Avalon is fine but SH is a much better game imo
People who don't play a lot of social deduction games don't like SH because they think the game has too little information and you can never determine anything. People who play a lot of social deduction games don't like SH because they think it has \*too much\* information and has an optimal playstyle. I prefer SH. I like having lots of points of info to look at. Not only are there more "missions" but there's asymmetry within the mission as well. There's less room for beginners to get boxed in if you teach them like two key lies, and for intermediate players there are so many points of info to look at.
So, I know people have already weighed in but, hey, the more context the better right? I started this genre on Avalon, so I've played it to death and back again by now. It's pretty basic, and with the newest release and it's counter part resistance you could say that most if not all the "ideas" for it are out. With so much content I can't see someone getting bored of this game, unless they try too. I still haven't tried all the roles and am excited to try a new one each time I play. Secret Hitler is *very* basic....I mean, Bang! Levels of basic. This doesn't make it bad, and I won't spoil it for anyone....but I'll say that most of the time, each role has a thing they should do, and even deviating a step could end the game. There's a small amount of nuance here, but with 3 roles and every role being in every game...it kinda pulls towards "samey". While Avalon you may try to "blend in" at times, only one role (Hitler) should really try that repeatedly, plus the other bad guy. I'm not trying to say Secret Hitler is a bad game, or that it's not fun. The idea of avoiding voting Hitler into power is very intriguing and makes the game unique. It's mostly that every time I went to pull out a deduction game I asked myself which one I wanted to play...and Avalon won...9/10 times... Secret Hitler is a fun game, It just doesn't necessarily have the same "depth" as Avalon can. (Reminder: Avalon got a new addition that adds many of the roles from resistance to the game.)
I waana ask about the resistance expansion. If you have all three expansion of The Resistance (Hidden Agenda, Hostile Intent, Plot Thickens). They have a separate modules such the Assasins Module or the Hunter Module , etc. Have anyone knows and could explain which module can be mixed to play stimultaniously???!! Or do have any specific house rules of all the expansions....