3 Spellcasters and a Dwarf
  • Home
  • Special Effect
    • Special Effect
    • The Final Return of The Indiana Jones Charity Globe Trot
    • The Warlock of Firetop Mountain Challenge
    • Return of The Indiana Jones Charity Globe Trot
    • Bard's Tale Challenge
    • Fighting Fantasy Challenge
    • The Indiana Jones Charity Globe Trot
    • Mirkwood Charity Walk
    • Middle-earth Charity Walk
    • Dungeon Daze
  • RPGs
    • The One Ring
    • The Evils of Illmire
    • Beach Patrol
    • The Surrendered Lands
  • Game Blogs
    • RPG Blog
    • Gaming Blog
  • Painting Blog
  • Contact

Gaming Blog

Mascarade

12/1/2022

0 Comments

 
12th January 2022

​Wednesday gaming round Simon's concluded with Mascarade, a fairly chaotic hidden role card game.

What's in a game?
  • Mask cards: A stable requisite of social deduction games because they are so good at hiding information are cards and Mascarade is no different in that regard. The game makes use of no less than 13 role cards, 12 of which are unique (There are 2 peasant cards.).
    Each card has it's own specific power and without going into detail, these cards frequently allow the active player to take money in some way or other from the bank or steal it from players. Some allow the active player to mess with other players' cards and so on
  • Coins: Pretty standard round card tokens representing gold.
  • Character tokens: Used to track which characters are in play.
  • Courthouse Board: Inevitably, players will get caught bluffing or cheating and must pay a fine on this tile which depicts an official looking building.
  • Scenario sheets: Used to track which cards are employed during a game. Not all cards are necessarily played with at the same time in Mascarade and the card-mix will change according to player count - Mascarade plays up to 13.
That's it for components.

Mascarade's components are normal standard you'd expect from a modern game, the game's standout quality are the colourful, detailed illustrations on the mask cards and courthouse board which to me look to have a late medieval/renaissance theme.

The game features a small amount of straightforward easy-to-understand iconography, having said that, the game also features a whole bunch of different roles to try and remember; which are only displayed on player guide cards.


How's it play?
Setup
  • Gold!: Give each player 6 gold.
  • Cards: Take the cards as required by the player count; shuffle them and deal 1 to each player face-up, so that all players can see each other's roles.
    After this, all cards should be flipped to face-down.
  • First player: Determine a 1st player.
That's it, we're ready to go.

On to play
Mascarade's opening is quite unique; the initial 4 turns must always be the exchange masks action, which is understandable as it randomises the cards that were initially shown. After these 4 turns, play proceeds as you would expect, the active player takes their turn, then play progress clockwise.
During their turn, the active player may perform 1 of the following 3 actions.
  • Look at card: All cards are kept face-down during the game and the active player can spend their action to look at their card. This is not as futile as it might sound as players can rapidly switch cards around!
  • Exchange cards: When this action is selected, the active player takes their own mask card and that of one other player without out looking or revealing either of them. Then, in secret potentially swaps them round, typically this is done by holding the cards under a table so no one can see what's going on. At this point the active player decides which card is returned to who and remember, all of this is done without looking at either of them.
  • Use card: The active player announces that their card and are using its power. The active player does not look at their card when they do this and it can be done even if they aren't sure what their card is, they can even outright lie if they want to or think they can get away with it. This will then lead to 2 outcomes.
    Unchallenged: If no one challenges the active player's declaration, then the active player carries the action they announced.
    Challenged: When the active player makes their announcement, any other player may challenge them by announcing that they in fact have that card. Thus:
    Active player; "I have The Queen and I can take 2 gold from the bank".
    Other player; "no, I have The Queen".
    When all challenges have been declared, the active player and all challengers reveal their cards.
    Whoever has the announced card (In this case The Queen.) can make use of its power. Everyone else who revealed a card, be it active player or challenger has to pay 1 gold to the Courthouse Board. It is possible that no player has the announced card!
These are 3 core actions players can perform, obviously, the cards' abilities will modify these to some degree or other.

Endgame
There are 2 criteria to ending a game.
If a player acquires 13+ gold coins, they win.
If a player loses all their gold, the game immediately ends and the player with the most coins wins.

Overall
For a large part, Mascarade feels like a pretty standard hidden role game, what makes it stand out though is the card-swapping mechanic.
During play, it's likely that players will quite quickly lose track of which character they have and announcing a card can always be risky; now that's what I call a hidden role!
This can of course be remedied by taking the look at card action, but is it worth spending an entire action to do so while other players could be earning money? Maybe it's worth taking a the risk - or bluffing!
Nudging players into this central dilemma is what makes it unique and interesting.
Otherwise, you'll be on pretty familiar ground if you like hidden role games: Trying to work towards your goals while also trying to calculate what other players are doing or which character they have - although the randomness of Mascarade has made that trickier!

It's hard to gauge  a game Mascarade because like many hidden role games, it's quality is dependant on the players involved, as you tend to play the player and not the game.

Like most hidden role games, Mascarade can be a bit divisive. If you don't like this style of games, you can probably give this a pass.
However, if on the other hand hidden role games are you thing and particularly if you like a bit of unpredictability in your game, then Mascarade is definitively worth a try.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    I play, I paint.
    ​This is where I talk about what I play.

    Archives

    March 2025
    March 2024
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019

    Categories

    All
    2 Player Only
    50 Fathoms
    Abstract
    Annual Quiz
    Area Control
    Asymmetrical Play
    Auctioning
    Black Hack
    Bluffing
    Board Game
    Campaign Play
    Card Game
    Clockwork & Chivalry
    Cooperative
    Cthulhu Hack
    Deck/Bag Builder
    Deduction
    Dice Game
    Drafting
    Engine Builder
    Hand Management
    Hidden Movement
    Hidden Role
    In Darkest Warrens
    Legacy
    Merry Outlaws
    One Vs Many
    Oubliette
    Party Game
    Programming
    Push Your Luck
    Real Time
    Renaissance
    Resource Management
    Roll And Move
    Roll And Write
    Route Builder
    RPG
    Sand Box
    Savage Worlds
    Set Collecting
    Storytelling
    Tableau Builder
    Team Based
    The Month In Gaming
    The Year In Gaming
    Tile Placement
    Trading
    Traitor
    Trick Taking
    Voting
    Wargame
    Wasted Hack
    WFRP
    Wogglecon
    Word Game
    Worker Placement

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Special Effect
    • Special Effect
    • The Final Return of The Indiana Jones Charity Globe Trot
    • The Warlock of Firetop Mountain Challenge
    • Return of The Indiana Jones Charity Globe Trot
    • Bard's Tale Challenge
    • Fighting Fantasy Challenge
    • The Indiana Jones Charity Globe Trot
    • Mirkwood Charity Walk
    • Middle-earth Charity Walk
    • Dungeon Daze
  • RPGs
    • The One Ring
    • The Evils of Illmire
    • Beach Patrol
    • The Surrendered Lands
  • Game Blogs
    • RPG Blog
    • Gaming Blog
  • Painting Blog
  • Contact