Saboteur 2 does exist, but I would rather call these two party games, not backstabbing. Try Shadows over Camelot. :)
Cylon is golden: Backstabbing bank holiday board games
The Bank Holiday weekend is upon us, so why not prepare for a wet weekend, as is the tradition, and go in search of some backstabbing board games? These games can involve working co-operatively with my fellow players, which can be rewarding, but you can always change your mind and there’s nothing like sadistic satisfaction of …
COMMENTS
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Sunday 3rd May 2015 09:06 GMT Graham Marsden
@Tomislav
The problem with Shadows over Camelot is that you really have to have each player doing just one quest for most of the game to have a chance of winning and, frankly, that gets a bit tedious after a while.
Not only that, but you need to "game" the system such that, eg on the quests for the Grail and Excalibur, you don't actually complete them, just ensure that they don't fail because otherwise you end up with them just chucking up loads of catapaults which will inevitably wipe out Camelot.
As such, it's often very difficult to succeed as the Traitor because if you don't play this way, it rapidly becomes obvious who you are.
It's a shame, because apart from this it's a quite a good game.
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Sunday 3rd May 2015 21:55 GMT Tomislav
@Graham Marsden
True, Shadows over Camelot can get a bit tedious after a while and working as a traitor is complicated but with just a bit of luck you can make Camelot go down in flames. :)
There was a game I played but not really liked that was very paranoia inducing - Panic Station. Some might like it. :)
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Saturday 2nd May 2015 20:59 GMT auburnman
"Battlestar Galactica .... The rules are simple"
This is absolute bullshit don't believe it. It's an entertaining game once you understand the rules but if you do play it go in with the understanding that there are literally 7 or 8 different card decks that are poorly labeled and you need to constantly reference the rules to look up the military hierarchy, the political hierarchy and what the NPC's do at specific points in the turn depending on the level of Cylon presence.
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Sunday 3rd May 2015 09:11 GMT Graham Marsden
Re: Fuck me:
You obviously have no idea about board game design these days.
Games like these will often be several *years* in the making as they are designed, revised, play tested, revised again, re-play tested, modified to improve the balance, blind play tested, revised again to clarify the rules or fix problems that experienced players didn't encounter but newbies did because it wasn't obvious that you could do X or you couldn't do Y...
Then there's the cost of artwork, printing, rulebooks etc etc.
And once you've actually *produced* the game, there's no guarantee it will sell, so for every Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne or Splendor, there are ten others which didn't make the grade, but you have still forked out all that money to make them...
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Monday 4th May 2015 10:54 GMT Graham Marsden
Re: Totally boring?
So what board games *have* you tried? Amazingly enough there are more games than Monopoly, Cluedo and Trivial Pursuit out there these days.
Find out if there's a local board games club and go along and try a few, you might find they're a lot more entertaining than you think.
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Monday 4th May 2015 15:33 GMT Graham Marsden
Re: Totally boring?
> real games such as chess or crib. Or shove ha'ppeny.
"According to John Aubrey, cribbage was created by the English poet Sir John Suckling in the early 17th century, as a derivation of the game "noddy""
"Shove ha'penny (or shove halfpenny), also known in ancestral form as shoffe-grote ['shove-groat' in Modern English]"
And "Chess is believed to have originated in Eastern India, c. 280 – 550 CE in the Gupta Empire,"
- All from Wikipedia
And you think *board games* are "so 19th Century"?
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Monday 4th May 2015 17:12 GMT x 7
Re: Totally boring?
yes - a 19th century fad for girly victorians who couldn't indulge in real games because their corsets were too tight.
Those three games you've found the origins of, are all older traditional real games with a bit of tradition and excitement behind them. Play them with real history at your shoulder
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Monday 4th May 2015 20:07 GMT Graham Marsden
Re: Totally boring?
x 7, I can't decide if you're just a sad troll or whether you're really that stupidly ignorant.
Modern board games are part of a tradition that dates back over three and a half thousand years. Some concepts in games may be new, but many (if not most) others are based on ancient types of games and if you'd actually bother to try looking at them instead of indulging in pathetic sneering, you would realise this.
FYI there are generally six types: Race games, War Games, Games of Position, Mancala Games, Calculation Games and Dice Games. If I wanted to waste my time in trying to educate you, I could find both ancient and modern examples of all those games, all of which you could play "with real history at your shoulder", but I'm sure you'd just find a way of trying to dodge the issue or weasel your way out of it.
As I've discovered in gaming, sometimes it's just not worth bothering to play with certain people, so please feel free to declare victory and go on enjoying your narrow little range of games whilst I, and everyone else, enjoy the vast universe of games which are out there.
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Tuesday 5th May 2015 09:23 GMT Jedit
"I'll stick to the pub - far better conversation there"
My group meets in the pub, so we get the best of both worlds - assuming we don't run into any idiots like you, that is.
I'm not really a fan of the games on this list. Game of Thrones strictly needs six, BSG takes way too long for what it is, Saboteur is plain dull and anyone who recommends Munchkin to anyone ought to be shot. My go-to list is:
Kemet - an area control game with all the viciousness of GOT in less than half the time, and it scales. Viticulture - a worker placement game about running a vineyard in Italy. Very smooth, easy for beginners to pick up despite having a fair few elements.
One Night Ultimate Werewolf - a social traitor game that plays in 15 minutes.
Hyperborea - a 4X game where you build an engine by buying cubes that let you perform different actions, angling towards three different victory conditions.
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Sunday 3rd May 2015 10:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
Munchkins - Thumbs Up
Read this article Saturday afternoon. Saturday evening went to a get together at a mates place and ended up playing games. The rules of the first one were being explained and I thought, "this sounds very familiar" - turns out it was Munchkins.
Good fun and to be recommended. Reminds me of a sort of "Talisman Lite".