Coup, from 2012, has become a staple in light social deduction games built around bluffs and lies! The deck is made up of five different character cards (three of each), fifty coins and six player aids that tell you what each character does.
Coup sees you try and guess what characters other players have and try to kill off everyone else leaving you the last one standing.
To begin you will shuffle the character cards and deal two to each player, placing them face down in front of you. You will then place the remaining cards in the centre of the table along with the supply of coins and take two coins each. You are now ready to begin the deception!
J’accuse!
Turns are very simple. Each player chooses an action. Those actions may be linked to a specific character or be a general action available to everyone. What is important here though is it doesn’t matter what character you have, you can take any action you wish! The available choices are:
● Income – take one coin from the bank, this can’t be stopped or challenged.
● Foreign Aide – Take two coins from the bank but the Duke can stop this.
● Coup – Pay seven coins from your supply to the bank and you can kill one of any player’s characters on the table. If you ever have ten coins then you must Coup. this cannot be stopped.
● Tax – The Duke can tax three coins from the bank.
● Assassinate – The Assassin can pay three coins to kill any player’s character. This can be stopped by the Contessa.
● Steal – The Captain can steal two coins from any player. Another Captain of the Ambassader can block this.
● Exchange – The Ambassador can take two cards from the deck and decide which two of the four they now have to keep. They discard the rest.
So far so easy? However, the next rule is what makes the game come alive.
At any point any player may challenge the action taken. If challenged, the current player must show the correct character or lose one of their cards. When a player has lost both their cards they are out of the game.
Play continues until only one player is left. Well done, you are the sneakiest one in the whole court!
