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Secret Hitler Board Game
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Description
Secret Hitler is a dramatic game of political intrigue and betrayal set in 1930's Germany.
Players are secretly divided into two teams - liberals and fascists.
Known only to each other, the fascists coordinate to sow distrust and install their cold-blooded leader.
The liberals must find and stop the Secret Hitler before it's too late. HOW TO PLAY:
Each round, players elect a President and a Chancellor who will work together to enact a law from a random deck.
If the government passes a fascist law, players must try to figure out if they were betrayed or simply unlucky.
Secret Hitler also features government powers that come into play as fascism advances.
The fascists will use those powers to create chaos unless liberals can pull the nation back from the brink of war. Secret Hitler Contents:
·3 foil boards
·2 wooden placards
·Secret identities for ten players
·Election tracker
·Policy deck tiles
·Rule booklet and strategy guide
Secret Hitler Overview
Is a party game really a party game if it doesn’t involve corruption, paranoia and wild accusations of Fascists? I thought not. Well my friend, read on and allow me to introduce you to the game that indeed ticks those boxes, Secret Hitler.
Aptly named, Secret Hitler is a hidden identity game where Liberals and Fascists fight to enact their policies and ultimately take control of government. To get into the spirit of this game let me take you back a few decades to when communism was king *cue flashback effect*. It’s 1930’s Germany and the fascists are beginning to rise to power. Are you one of them, hell-bent on getting Hitler elected as leader, or are you a liberal, determined to put an end to the fascist movement?
The story is yours to unfold as you play either a Liberal, Fascist, or Hitler himself, with the aim of overthrowing the other party. The Fascists are given a leg up in the game (I guess to make up for the inevitable accusations they will face) by knowing who the other Fascists and Hitler are. The Liberals have no idea who’s who and must deduce this as the game plays out. Be sharp – they are as likely to distrust another Liberal as they are a Fascist, so Fascists can play on this vulnerability throwing lies and accusations of other players to move the scent off of themselves and Hitler. Hitler, however, is as blind as the Liberals and must trust that his loyal devotees will play, protect and support him in his rise to the big bad throne of communist Nazi rule.
Set Up
Secret Hitler contains 1 Fascist and 1 Liberal board where respective policies are placed, Presidential and Chancellor placards, player cards, and a policy deck containing Liberal and Fascist cards.
During set up, each player receives a randomly selected envelope containing 4 cards. In every envelope, each player will find their secret role, party membership, and their Ja and Nein voting cards. Secret identity cards will either say Liberal, Fascist, or Hitler. Liberals will always make up the majority players, and the number of players will determine whether there are 1, 2, or 3 Fascists alongside their ultimate leader.
Once everyone has discreetly examined their role, all players close their eyes. When prompted, Fascists can open their eyes to identify who the other Fascists is/are. Hitler will then be called on to raise his thumb so the Fascists can identify him, but Hitler is not to know who his loyal supporters are so must keep his eyes closed. The policy deck, made up of 11 Fascist and 6 Liberal cards are then shuffled together and placed face down, ready to be enacted.
When all is ready…it is time to begin.
Electing your Government
At the beginning of each round, the Presidential placard is handed to the next player in a clockwise direction. That new president in all his glory gets to nominate a Chancellor, someone he/she either believes to be trustful (if playing on the Liberal team), or someone they know will help them wreak some havoc on the Liberals. However, democracy still exists and it is up to the people to have final say by voting either Ja or Nein for the candidate. If the majority vote Ja, the candidate is elected Chancellor.
If there is a tie, or majority Nein votes, then the president has failed to elect his Chancellor and the presidential role is passed to the next person. When a vote fails, the fail counter is initiated. 3 failed votes and the top card of the policy pile is automatically enacted. This could play in either teams’ favour.
Enacting Policies
Once theChancellor has been voted in, it’s time to enact a policy. The President draws the top 3 cards from the policy pile and discreetly looks at them, before discarding one and handing 2 to the Chancellor. The Chancellor then takes a look at the 2 remaining cards, discards one and turns over the final remaining card for all to see, placing it on either the Liberal or Fascist board. Expect a sigh of relief and cheering from everyone if a Liberal card is turned over, but pay close attention, at least 2 of these members are outright lying about their “relief” in the Liberal policy being enacted.
Reveal a Fascist policy however, and expect the accusations to come out a-swingin’. Where did it all go so wrong? Did the pernicious President discard the only Liberal card, leaving the Chancellor with no choice but to play a Fascist card? Did the President hand over one of each, claiming the Chancellor is obviously a Fascist because they played the Fascist card? Is the President lying? If the President and Chancellor are singing two different tunes, how do you figure out which one is telling the truth? Alliances can quickly break in this game as paranoia and distrust spread between players like wildfire.
Liar Liar Pants on Fire
Once the first policy is enacted then a race begins to get all policy slots on a Liberal or Fascist board filled up. As policies are enacted and placed on the Fascist board, Presidential powers are introduced that can benefit either Liberal or Fascist, so it’s not always the worst idea for a Fascist policy to be chosen as it grants the President capabilities like investigating a players party membership card, or shooting a player (figuratively, of course). Such allowances can help a Liberal rule out if a player is a Fascist. However, if this game teaches you anything, it’s to not believe anything anyone tells you. A Fascist President is just as likely to look at a Liberal member’s card and try to claim they are the Fascist.
There are a few different ways in which Secret Hitler can be won. The first is when either party fills their board with policies. However, if the President successfully shoots Hitler (what a sentence) the Liberals win, but if Hitler is elected Chancellor after 3 Fascists policies have been placed on the board, the Fascists win.
Final Thoughts
The mistrust and paranoia this game elicits will have you doubting everything and everyone. If you happen to be playing for the Liberal party, you can be genuine in your search for ‘truth’ and conviction that you are an honest, law-abiding Liberal. However, the Fascists have the added challenge of convincing the other players of their “good-willed, innocent actions” while carefully conspiring their rise to the top.
I’m generally not good at bluffing so, naturally, the first time I played this I landed the superstar role of Hitler, and only had 1 faithful disciple to help me take control. Miraculously I somehow convinced all players that my sweet, innocent Liberal friend was either a Fascist or Hitler to which the more she screamed in frustration she wasn’t, only convinced them more she was – *cue evil laugh*. It was hilarious to say the least and lead to a very sweet win for myself and the other Fascist.
I really enjoyed this game, it had our group in stitches as accusations were flying everytime Chancellors were nominated and Fascist policies were played. What’s more, our group had a mix of seasoned boardgamers along with those who had no real experience playing anything beyond pictionary, but was easily picked up by them and fun was had by all. If you asked me if my nefarious character could once again convince the team someone else was Hitler it would probably be a no, but that’s what’s great about the game – you never know which way it’s gonna be played or what skilled bluffing mixed with some sheer dumb luck will create. I’d highly recommend this for any group of people looking for a laugh and a game where you’re guaranteed to say ‘Fascist’ more times than you ever have in your life.
When I am in the mood for a good party game amongst my friends, no board game does it like Secret Hitler. It is unique in that it presents an interesting opportunity to extract the social dynamics of the group with which you play this game – some may be silent and calculating (or clueless!), some may be loud and opinionated, and some may be cunning and manipulative. It is the last bit that always brings the most shock value to any play session and I am always amused to find out how people can so convincingly sell me on a series of lies!
Premise
The game’s theming is very much on point and a simple and consistent design is present throughout the box and all its contents. Secret Hitler is about you and your group of friends playing German policymakers during the year 1932, a few years before the start of WW2. Fascism is on the rise and despite most of you working your best to create a Liberal Germany, a few of you have a different, more Fascist, version of Germany in mind. As you might have guessed, it follows the format of a hidden role game, similar to classic games like Mafia or Werewolf. But it uses its political nature to create two whole teams battling it out to take control of the government.
Gameplay
As a Liberal, there are two ways of winning the game: either you pass all 5 Liberal policies on your board, or at some point in the middle of the game, you assassinate Secret Hitler. As a Fascist, you may either pass 6 Fascist policies or secure Hitler’s place as a Chancellor in the elected government after at least 3 Fascist policies have already been passed. Each round involves voting to elect a government consisting of the President and a Chancellor, wherein after the voting is successful, the President picks up 3 policy cards from the draw deck, discards one and passes the remaining two to the Chancellor. Then the Chancellor decides to discard another policy card and pass the remaining one onto the appropriate board. The gameplay flow is quite smooth and easy to follow and allows for a lot of speculation and discussion between rounds – which is where this game shines. It is in these discussions you may extract the social dynamics of your friend group! The base strategy of any player is to be as convincing a liberal as possible and sway the opinions of the majority. It is a battle of your word against theirs because even if you get into an argument with someone else over the validity of your allegiance to the Liberal party, you may never pull out the discarded policies to prove your point.
Balance
There is a dichotomy in the way the game is played because as a Liberal, your strength lies in numbers, but you collectively know nothing and cannot afford to trust anyone easily. The Fascists on the other hand are few and far between but they know everything – who the other Fascists are around the table and who is their leader, the Secret Hitler. Depending on the player count, the twist is that Hitler may or may not know who the Fascists are. So the Fascists must work double-time to help Hitler locate them so they all work together to win. With more Fascist policies enacted, extra actions/powers must be taken by the President responsible for passing them. These may include discretely seeing a chosen player’s party membership, assassination, or enabling veto powers. The last power is very interesting because it only activates once the 5th Fascist policy is enacted, indicating that the Liberals are close to defeat. However, once enabled it affords the Liberals a final fighting chance to get back in the game because it thereafter allows both the Chancellor and the President to veto all 3 policies that were just drawn, if not to their liking.
Generally, I find that this game works best when it is allowed to be the most chaotic – when played with a group of 10. This allows room for not only the Liberals to play to the strength of the Liberal majority and convince the masses of their beliefs, but it forces the Fascists to employ meaner strategies in twisting the intentions of other players in the game as each policy is put down on the board. In this way, I find that there is a 50/50 split outcome between either team winning, given that each side of the table plays the game properly. So, I rarely pull this one out of the shelf when there are only 5-6 players as the game is unfortunately inferior this way.
X-tra Spice
I highly recommend going all out with the theme and turning it into a speakeasy cocktail party to serve up some interesting drinks from the prohibition era, especially if your player group is already familiar with the game. Get your friends to dress up like it’s the 30s and put on some swing jazz for the ambience. Secret Hitler certainly does not require you to commit to the bit, but I always find people tend to be receptive to going all-in with the immersion.
The online community for Secret Hitler is very active and you can even download the digital pdf and print out all its contents without having to buy it. As the creators have been quite liberal about their game, there are now free open-source expansions: the Secret Hitler Socialist Expansion and Secret Hitler XL which add new parties such as the Socialists and the Communists respectively into the mix. These introduce different win conditions and include bonus actions or party powers on the new boards. The artwork is also quite consistent with the original’s design and if you fancy hosting a party for up to 19-20 players, then Secret Hitler XL is the logical upgrade for the base game.
Final Remarks
Social deduction games heavily rely on the ability of their players to be convincing liars. So no matter how good the game, if your players are terrible liars, then they may not grow fond of Secret Hitler. After a few rounds of this game, you and your players may note that there are way more Fascist than Liberal policies. I remember making the cardinal mistake of once playing Secret Hitler with friends who are economists and statisticians. One of them had the bright idea of peeking at the policy deck and keeping track of the total number of Liberal and Fascist policies. They eventually devised a statistical meta after a few policies were enacted which robbed the game of its suspense and paranoia because their predictions were pretty much on point! Nevertheless, this once cult classic game fully deserves its mainstream appeal of being one of the best secret role + social deduction games out there and I cannot recommend this enough to anyone looking to take their first step into the board game hobby.
Zatu Score
You might like
- The chaos that erupts
- Scrutinizing your teammates and deducing sides
- Fooling others
Might not like
- Bluffing if you dont have a good poker face
- How many times Hitler and Fascist is shouted within a game