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A call to all reprobates: The Resistance Avalon Big Box (the box isn’t big).
Playing Avalon is like trying to sell life insurance in an Old Folks Home. The more you lie, confound and bemuse the more likely you are to win. You might even feel like a nauseating, insincere, hypocritical huckster. But that doesn’t stop you wanting to play again.
How do you play this game?
Assemble some friends (between 5 and 10) and give each a random character card. Arrange for the minions of Mordred to know each other and for Merlin to know the assassin and you’re off. The King in each of 3 to 5 rounds will select a number of players to go on a quest. Players then vote to determine should the quest goes ahead. If the King’s motion is approved, then the chosen players will have the opportunity to succeed or fail the quest. If the loyal servants of Arthur can successfully negotiate their lack of knowledge and suspicion of everyone to compile three successes, they win. If, by evasion, lying, and denouncing the innocent, the minions fail three quests, they win. There are a few other rules but that’s the gist of it.
“Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.”
It amazes me that not everyone at the games table takes pleasure in shouting, swearing and finding inventive ways to insult and enrage their friends. However, vive la différence! So, Avalon won’t be for everyone. It demands poor behaviour. It can be played ‘piano’ and even without any verbal interaction at all (‘The horror! The horror!’). But played like that, you’ll miss all the joy. Played ‘energico,’ Avalon is more fun than a cat in a ball pit.
Now, if you want to crack on, just go to the summary. If not…
Reasons not to buy The Resistance Avalon Big Box (the box isn’t big).
In the interests of honesty-a quality which may not be helpful when playing – Avalon does have limitations:
· Avalon plays with a minimum of 5 players. So it’s a shelf warmer if you can’t get at least 5 people together.
· Newbies playing with experienced ‘Avaloners’ can inadvertently sabotage a game.
· Some games will ‘bust’ due to a combination of seating arrangement and draw of the cards. I won’t bore you with the details, you’ll know when it happens.
· Balance in Avalon is a delicate intangible. Selecting suitable characters to compensate for varying levels of player understanding and learning how best to play them requires experience.
· Owners of The Resistance: Avalon, might think twice. Barring one or two minor tweaks and revised artwork, it’s the same game.
· Some people just don’t like games that involve bluffing, arguing and dishonesty.
Why buy reason 1.
It’s fun. A lot of fun.
Why buy reason 2.
It’s accessible. Avalon: Big Box (the box isn’t big), heretofore and hereafter referred to as Avalon, can be set up and explained in the time it takes Grannie to suck an egg (if you soft poach first). You’ll be getting on with the accusing and gaslighting your mates in minutes.
Why buy reason 3.
It’s a team game. Winning is always nice isn’t it; that little blast of opioid peptides that puts you, momentarily, on top of the world. But when you’re part of a team- the high fiving and back slaps, the affirmation of others, the spontaneous cheering and ensuing chants of ‘losers’ (perhaps accompanied by some imaginative synchronous hand clapping and gesturing, football hooligan style) directed at those sad, broken faces who, moments earlier thought they had victory in the bag-wow! Avalon can enable this. It’s a great team game.
Why buy reason 4.
The Arthurian theme elevates the game. Of all the games I’ll mention below (reason 6) Avalon is the strongest at marrying theme and gameplay, with one exception: Battlestar Galactica. However, Battlestar is out of print and anyway, it doesn’t manage the traitor mechanic quite as smoothly.
Avalon is an ingenious retheming of the card game, The Resistance, published in 2009, based on the sci-fi scribblings of J. Michael Straczynski who created The Resistance universe. Both games are mechanically identical and play well regardless of theme. So why buy Avalon, or, if you already own The Resistance, ditch it in favour of Avalon? Well, in my humble opinion, the Resistance’s theme is niche and, reduced to its bare bones with no characterisation, bland. Avalon’s theme is not.
In Avalon, all the legendary Arthurian characters appear in the box: the Knights of the Round Table, Merlin, Mordred, even Excalibur. They lend a familiarity to proceedings which both helps in learning to play and engages participants young and old.
More than this, Avalon generates stories, sometimes amazing stories; tales of sophisticated courtly intrigue emerge as players tussle in the eternal struggle between good and evil. I was so enamoured by one story that emerged out of an Avalon session that I wrote it down. If it would please you to read it, click here.
Ironically, later editions of The Resistance have included (re-named) characters imported from Avalon, so if you do prefer the sci-fi game-scape you won’t miss out.
Why buy reason 5.
Replayability, which means great value for money. Most plays are short and fun enough that players want to play ‘just one more’. The puzzle to be resolved is rarely the same because the behaviour of players, the beating heart of this game, changes and develops from play to play. And mixing up the characters create new challenges. I’m still up for it, even after 300 and something outings.
Why buy reason 6
Avalon is the best title in the bountiful social deduction genre. It’s one of my favourite games, period.
There are loads of entertaining games that are worthy of your time and money such as Ultimate Werewolf and its many offspring (the ‘One Night’ games and Blood on the Clocktower spring to mind), CS Files: Murder in Hong Kong, Coup, Chameleon, Mysterium, A Fake Artist Goes to New York, Battlestar Galactica, Dead of Winter, Shadows over Camelot, Lifeboat etc., etc., etc.
So, why, for me, does Avalon top the lot? Simple! The traitor mechanic is implemented more satisfactorily than in any of the above-mentioned titles (I’ve played them all). In Avalon, finding the traitors presents players with the most coherent, most intriguing challenge in social deduction gaming; a puzzle that can only be resolved using deductive reasoning, psychological chicanery and a soupçon of bluff and bluster. As a servant you have to be creative to manoeuvre players into making gaffes and blunders while persuading those predisposed to distrust the mere blink of your eyes that you are an ally not an enemy. Meanwhile the traitors will be having great fun spreading lies, disinformation and quietly taunting the Honest Johns at the table.
Full disclosure, not everyone I know agrees with my assertion. Nathalie prefers the less confrontational and more aesthetic Detective Club (Dixit plus gentle lying). Giles likes Secret Hitler because “it’s easier”. Related note: Secret Hitler is derivative crap (my opinion).
Summary
Buy The Resistance Avalon Big Box (the box isn’t big).
Greame Johnston
