Hidden Role games are some of my favorite games, and the mechanic is possibly the most common among all games I have designed. One reason why is they variety of how to put it in a game. So lets go over what I consider to be the big three.

Stronger but smaller

This is the one most people think of when they think “hidden role,” mostly because of Resistance, werewolf, and many other mainstays of the genre. In this type of hidden role game, The smaller group (often refered to as traitors, spies, or wolves) has greater abilities than the larger team. The larger team is often considered the “good guys,” since they are the majority. In theory, if the traitors outnumbered the others, then the smaller faction would mechanically act more like the traitors. But we’re getting off-topic.

Games like this grant the smaller group some sort of power. This means that they feel evenly matched with the weaker but greater-numbered force. It also means that the larger group has something to be afraid of, which helps the atmosphere. In resistance, a single red card outdoes any number of green cards. This means that you need to avoid every single spy player, because even one could ruin your plan.

I think this subgenre is fun, but has been done to death. It also leads to some of the most stressful situations in gaming. Having extra power and needing to use it can be scary for some players who normally like playing along, whereas other players will basically demand it, since one side is just better than the other, at least in terms of a single player.

Weaker but safer

Occasionally refered to as imposter games, this is a hidden role game where the traitors are in a worse position than the other players. It makes the traitor feel terrified of the rest of the players, and often they are alone as well. However, to offset this, the traitor is usually much safer. In Spyfall, for example, the vote of spy must be unanimous. And even then, the spy can out themselves before the vote starts in a last ditch attempt to win. A lot of imposter games have that as a win condition, since it would require every player to agree, so if even one is unconvinced, the traitor can still win.

I love this genre, but it can tend to follow very similar patterns. All players are asked to do some action, but one player doesn’t have all the information. Then, at the end of the game, all players vote for who they think is the traitor. This is how almost every game like this goes. I really want to see some more creative ways for these games to end.

Confused

So here’s the thing about hiddden role games: it’s not always large team vs. small team. We’ve sort of classified it like that in the larger sense, but the words “hidden role” just mean that your role is hidden from other players. Some people argue that any form of hidden victory information counts as hidden roles, and while I see the argument, I think I disagree. Hidden roles means that there are players you want to ally with, and player who you don’t, you just don’t know which is which.

That leaves a nice spot for games where teams are evenly matched, they just don’t know who the other is. This is a pretty rare interpretation of the mechanic, but not out of the question. My favorite game to do this (albeit unintentionally) is the one-night revolution game: a spinoff of resistance. If you are playing with fewer than 6 players, then there is a very high likelihood that there are as many or more traitors than non-traitors, at which point wether you are a traitor or not isn’t necessarily a case of good guys vs. bad guys, but A vs. B.

I think there’s a lot of untapped potential in this space. The concept of determining your allies outside of a simple good or bad has a lot of different ways to play out. The downside is that it’s going to get pretty complicated when there’s not a simple way to explain it, plus, it’s hard to balance when there’s not clear advantage in any one direction of any specific type.

Combinations

There are, however, mixes. My game Shoot the Messenger was originally meant to be a form of the first type, where the hidden player has an advantage, but as the design went on, they ended up being a little weaker. So now, there are parts of the game where they have the advantage and parts of the game where they don’t. In Spyfall 2, there’s a way to play with more than one spy, but they are not on the same team. That means that finding the other spy is just as much a challenge as it is to anyone else, leading to some very confused spies.

Conclusion

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it hopefully gave you some things to think about when it comes to designing hidden role games. I’m excited to see what happens to the genre as it’s settling back down after the big rush post-resistance.