How to play

The idea

5 to 10 people, one table. Most of you are liberals and have no idea who anyone is. A few of you are fascists, and you know each other. One player is Hitler.

Every round the table elects a government of two, and that government enacts one policy from a deck of 6 liberal and 11 fascist tiles. The liberals are trying to enact 5 liberal policies or shoot Hitler. The fascists are trying to enact 6 fascist ones or get Hitler elected Chancellor late in the game. The deck is stacked against the liberals on purpose: a fascist policy going down is not proof of anything.

Everything else is talking. You may say anything about your role, your draw or your investigation, including things that are not true. You may never show a card — and on a phone you cannot, because nothing is on screen unless a finger is holding it there.

Who is who

Dealt at random when the host starts. Exactly one player is Hitler at every table size, and he is not counted among the fascists below — a five-player game has one fascist plus Hitler.

• LiberalsMost of the table. They are told nothing about anybody, and everything they ever learn comes from watching who votes for what.
• FascistsThe few. They are told who each other are before the first round, and that is the whole of their advantage.
• HitlerCounted apart from the fascists above, and not one of the players they are told about. He carries their colour because he wins with them, and because an investigation of him says only “fascist”.

Fascists always learn who the other fascists are, and who Hitler is. At a small table Hitler learns them back; from seven players on, Hitler is as blind as a liberal and has to work out who is protecting him.

A round

1. Election

   The Presidency passes one seat clockwise every round, whether the last election passed or not — it is a rota, not a prize. The President nominates a Chancellor from the eligible seats, then everyone still alive votes Ja or Nein at the same time, including the two of them.

   A strict majority elects. A tie is a failed election. Nothing is shown until the last ballot lands, and then every screen shows the full breakdown at once — who voted which way is public, always.

2. Legislative session

   The President draws three policy tiles, discards one face down and passes two to the Chancellor. The Chancellor enacts one and discards the other. Neither discard is ever revealed, to anyone.

   Play this part in silence: the government does not get to narrate what it drew until the tile is down. The app cannot enforce that one — it is the only rule here that is yours to keep.

   When fewer than three tiles are left, the discard pile is shuffled back in. The board shows both counts, so you can see a reshuffle coming.

3. Executive action

   If the fascist policy just enacted sits on a slot that grants a power, the President must use it before the next round begins. Powers come from the slot, not from the party of the government that filled it.

Term limits

The President and Chancellor of the last elected government cannot be nominated as Chancellor in the next one. Once there are five or fewer players alive, only the last Chancellor is locked out — with a table that small, locking out two seats would leave nobody to nominate.

A failed election does not term-limit anybody, because nobody was elected. The app simply does not offer an ineligible seat, and the board marks the seats that are out, so this is not arithmetic anyone at the table has to redo.

Failed elections

Every failed election advances the election tracker. On the third in a row the country falls into chaos: the top tile of the deck is enacted immediately, with no government and no power, the tracker resets, and all term limits are forgotten — the next President may nominate anyone.

Enacting any policy resets the tracker, however it got there. A vetoed agenda counts as a failed election too.

Presidential powers

Which slot grants which power depends on how many people sat down. This is your board:

Investigate

The President looks at one player’s Party Membership — liberal or fascist, never the Secret Role, so Hitler reads as an ordinary fascist. Only the President sees it, and they may say anything they like about it afterwards. Nobody can be investigated twice.

Special election

The President hands the Presidency to any other living player, who runs the next election immediately. After that one round the order resumes from the seat after the President who called it, so a special election skips nobody’s turn.

Policy peek

The President looks at the top three tiles of the deck, in order, and puts them back untouched. Only they see it.

Execution

The President kills a player. That seat is out for the rest of the game — no vote, no nomination, no power. If it was Hitler, the liberals win on the spot.

A policy the people enact in chaos grants nothing, and a power with no legal target is skipped and announced.

The veto

From the 5th fascist policy on, the government may kill an agenda outright. The Chancellor proposes the veto; if the President consents, both tiles are discarded and nothing is enacted. If the President refuses, the Chancellor must enact one of the two after all.

A successful veto counts as a failed election, tracker and all — three of them still throw the country into chaos.

How it ends

• Liberals win5 liberal policies are enacted.
• Liberals winHitler is executed.
• Fascists win6 fascist policies are enacted.
• Fascists win Hitler is elected Chancellor after 3 fascist policies are already down. The board draws a band under exactly those slots, because this is the one a table forgets.

On your phone

The seat list says these without words. Each mark below is the one the board draws beside a name; hold or tab onto one there and it hands its word back.

• President
• Chancellor
• Term-limited
• Executed
• Ballot cast
• Offline

Press and hold to see a secret. Your role, your draw, an investigation result: they exist on screen only while you are holding them, and they are gone the instant you let go, switch tabs or lock the phone. Nothing is hidden behind a blur that somebody could photograph.

You are told who your fellow fascists are exactly once, during the reveal, and never again. Read it properly the first time — the app will not remind you.

A cast ballot is not handed back, not even to you. You are sitting next to the people it is a secret from.

There is no game log. The board shows what a physical table would show right now. Arguing about what happened three rounds ago is the game, not a feature.

If a phone dies, the host issues a claim PIN from Host tools and reads it out; you open the site anywhere, pick Reclaim seat, and type the lobby code and the PIN.