Mascarade is one of my board game group’s favourite games, to the point that we will regularly shout “I’m the peasant!” at each other in any context. However, the friend who owns it recently got a lovely new job and sadly can’t come to game nights as often anymore. Enter my shiny new copy of Macarade, second edition - the same chaotic fun but with gorgeous new art and a slightly rebalanced choice of roles.
I’m new to Mascarade - tell me about the game
Mascarade is a hidden role game where the roles regularly get shuffled around and no one can be quite sure who they are. The goal of the game is simply to reach 13 gold coins, using the various roles’ abilities to get there. Theme-wise, the players are all guests at a masquerade ball, and are swapping masks to take on the characters of King, Judge, Peasant, Thief, Beggar, and more.
The game starts with role cards (or masks, if you’re sticking with the theme) being dealt face up to each player, and then flipped face down. Then for the first four turns, the active player must choose another player and swap (or not) their two cards under the table without looking at them. As a result, by the time the game starts proper, everyone and everything is thoroughly confused.
After those initial four turns, players can choose to either look at their card (boring!), swap again with someone else, or claim a role. When someone claims a role, they get to use that character’s power, for example taking coins from another player or from the bank. However, any other player (or players) can challenge the first by also claiming that same role. In that case, all players making a claim must show their cards, and only the player who’s right (if there is one) gets to use the ability. Any pretenders pay a fine to the courthouse.
How does it play?
Trying to keep track of everyone’s role card is a fool’s errand. (Incidentally, the Fool takes one coin from the bank and then swaps (or doesn’t) two other players’ cards without looking at them.) In fact, trying to keep track of your own card is a challenge - even if you look at it, it will probably have been swapped before your next turn. In my opinion, Masquerade works best when everyone leans into the chaos. My game group will often just randomly shuffle the cards they’re ‘swapping’, or challenge other players’ claims just to mess with them (we’re all good friends, I promise).
Mascarade is one of those rare games truly designed for high player counts. I’ve only ever played it with 6 or more players, although never as high as the 12 or 13 maximum. It does support lower player counts, but in that case you have one or more masks (roles) in the centre of the table and can swap with those as well as with other players. Honestly, I can’t imagine it’s as fun as having all the roles dealt out, since it takes away the element of picking another player to mess with.
Even at those higher player counts, Mascarade is a snappy game with a lot of replayability. There’s 16 total roles in the second edition, and the game gives two suggested sets of roles for each player count, plus guidelines on putting together your own set. It’s also very rules-light - most of the “rules” are the character powers, which everyone gets on a cheat sheet - and so it’s very approachable in my opinion.
I’m a seasoned Mascarade player - what’s new in the second edition?
For the most part, the second edition of Mascarade has left the original game alone. All the characters from the original are still in the second edition, although there are a few name changes and a couple of refinements to the abilities. There’s also four additional roles taken from the original Mascarade’s expansion. I’ve never played with the expansion, so these were all new to me, and so from my perspective their abilities each added an interesting opportunity to mix things up. I particularly like the Princess, who chooses a player to show their card to everyone else, without them getting to see it themself.
I’m sure there’ll be people who prefer the art of the original Mascarade, but honestly I'm not one of them. As lovely as the detailed character portraits are, the colourful masks of the second edition lean much harder into the masquerade ball theme, and are much easier to identify from across the table. My only quibble is that I wish they could be read either way up, like playing cards - in my games somehow every time the Princess forced a player to reveal their card, they had it upside down.
I actually think the second edition is a bit more user-friendly in general. It includes a set of cards with the suggested sets of characters for each player count, which double up as a reference while you’re playing. It’s also a bit easier to put together your own set of characters, with the money earning characters (which should make up ⅓ to ½ of your deck) now labelled with a star, and roles with minimum player requirements have those written on the cards too.
Give me the overall verdict
Mascarade’s second edition tweaks the original just enough to improve it without really changing it. It’s still a brilliant hidden role game that excels at high player counts and provides plenty of opportunities for messing with your friends. If you have the original but not its expansion, the four new roles might be worth the second edition’s modest asking price. If you don’t have the original, then that same modest asking price gets you an awful lot of game, an awful lot of replayability, and an awful lot of fun.
