For the second week in the row, I had the opportunity to play a secret role game. The name of the game is Secret Hitler, and similarly to lasts weeks game, Avalon, it involves good vs evil, or more specifically, Liberals vs. Fascists. At the beginning of the game, everyone is assigned a role and a team, with the only real role of significance being that of the fascist who is named secret Hitler, and they have special rules to go with the character. The game works by passing around the role of president, with that person then assigning someone else as chancellor. Everyone then votes on whether or not they trust the pair, and if it passes, the president and chancellor can pass a legislation. The president draws three legislation tiles, a mix of fascist and liberal policies, chooses two, and then hands them to the chancellor, who chooses which one goes into law. The liberals win by passing so many liberal policies. For the fascist, it is the same with one exception, an automatic win if Hitler is elected chancellor after three fascist policies have been passed. Additional special factors come into play as well, like the president getting to shoot someone.

The hardest part of this game for me was the challenge of deception. Unlike the luxury that was last week, I was placed on the fascist team multiple times, placing me in the position of having to attempt to deceive the rest of the players, something that comes as a challenge to me, a horrible liar. Additionally, I was challenged throughout the game to figure out how to work things towards my favor, and to try to improve my strategy skills, not just go along with everyone else. After being shot twice when I was innocent, I was able to play it up later so that when I was guilty, I wasn’t accused, or was given a break because I had already been shot. I really saw leadership in this game when people were able to step up amidst the arguing and chaos and get everyone to think logically and to have a more civil discourse, which made for a more interesting game. Being on the fascist team, I was also challenged to employ more leadership skills working to take the blame away from Hitler and to successfully win the game. I think it would be fun to play this game with my friends from home who I was on the swim team with. Many of them would love the political aspect as well as the amount of logic going into the game, but could also turn it into one of those rounds that devolve into fun chaos with no logic whatsoever.

To be completely honest, during the first meeting of this class, I felt totally out of my league. Most of the people in the class have far more gaming knowledge and higher competency related to the course material. I was incredibly overwhelmed when we started out playing Avalon, but thankfully it wasn’t too far out of my comfort zone. As a secret role game, it followed a medieval theme, with characters like Merlin, Morgana, and Percival, some with special knowledge or abilities. Two teams, one good one evil, each competing to complete or fail three quests respectively, with ample opportunities for decit, vetoing quests, and sabotaging votes. Characters choose a team to go on a quest, and then vote on if the quest goes, and then those on the quest vote to see if it will succeed. Throughout this, everyone is observing each other, keeping track of how people vote, and using logic to determine who is on the side of evil. Once an evil team member is figured out, then the good, being the majority, can effectively exclude them and work to pass more quests. As the night went on and more rounds were completed, we began to add more roles with more additional rules and nuances, giving some people more knowledge and adding to the dynamic of mystery.

Luckily for me, I was never placed in the position of being on the evil team, and as a horrible liar, that would have posed quite the problem for me. Rather, the hardest part of this game for me was knowing who to trust. My skills of deduction at the same level as many of the people I was playing with, and I know that it affected my confidence and ability to play the game. It was both helpful and a hindrance to be playing with some people that I know, as it made it easier to tell when some were lying, but often times it was made more difficult by them playing up the aspects of their personality so as to maintain their secret identity, and I lost a level of objectivity.

I really saw this tie into leadership at the hands of two of my classmates who were in my group who had played the game before. They were very understanding and helpful when explaining rules and nuances of deduction and strategy for the game. They really acted as leaders through that brief mentorship role. When it comes to how the game itself incorporates leadership, I found that during the game, I was able to see people from the good team step up and share the deductions that they had made, keep the team from devolving into chaos, and helped build trust between members of the good team, despite rarely being able to fully prove any one member was good.

I really would love to play this game with my extended family. Part of our holiday tradition involves playing cards and games together, and now that the majority of us are adults, this type of deduction and hidden role game would really resonate with a lot of them. My family is all very competitive, and are the type of people that would take their roles and jobs a little too seriously. They are all very logical and analytical, and would definitely enjoy something like this.