I mentioned playing a game called The Resistance. You can buy The Resistance, but there’s really no point; it’s kind of like buying Uno when you can just as easily play Crazy 8s with a deck of cards. This is a great game; tons of fun and easy to play. The only downside is that you need at least 5 people to play.

So without further ado, here are the rules (slightly adapted from wikipedia).

Setup

Split a regular deck of playing cards into red and black cards.

Shuffle an appropriate number of black (Resistance) and red (Spy) cards as per the table below and deal them out at random.

Number of Spies & Resistance Members

After each player looks at his card to know his role, discard the cards.

The first mission leader instructs the group to close their eyes, for the spies to open their eyes and see each other, for the spies to close their eyes again, and then for everyone to open their eyes and begin the game (with long pauses at each stage).

Missions

During each round of the game, the player to the left of the previous Leader becomes the new Leader. The Leader selects a certain number of players to send out on a mission (the Leader may choose to go out on the mission themselves), starting with Mission 1. The table below shows the required number of players to go out on each mission. All of the players then discuss the Leader’s choice and, simultaneous and in public, vote on whether to accept the team make-up or not. If a majority of players vote no to the proposal, leadership passes on to the next player to the left, who proposes his own mission. (I take this to mean that ties mean the mission continues.) This continues until a majority of players agree with the current Leader’s mission assignment. After five rejected mission proposals in a row, the Imperial Spies automatically win the game, therefore it is a common house rule to not vote on the fifth mission proposal and simply send whatever the Leader proposes.

Number of players required be sent on each mission

(*) Two Mission Fail cards are required for the mission to fail

Once a mission team is agreed on, the players then “go” on the mission. To “go” on a mission, each selected player is given a black (Success) card and a red (Failure) card. Players will turn in either their black card or their red card. Resistance members MUST turn in, face down, a Mission Success card, while the Imperial Spies may either secretly turn in a Mission Success or Mission Fail card. The cards are shuffled and then revealed. If all cards show Success, the Resistance earns one point. If even one card shows Fail, the Spy team has sabotaged the mission and earns one point (except for the above-noted exceptions on Mission 4, where it may be necessary for 2 Fail cards to be played in order for the mission to fail).

The game continues until one team accumulates 3 points.

That’s the boring details, but not the fun part of the game. The game is not really about the cards that are played, the game is about trying to guess who the spies are (or, conversely, trying to throw suspicion away from yourself and onto other people). It’s about bluffing, and reading body language, and misunderstandings.

It is so frustrating when you are accused of being a spy, when you are clearly not. I have never been the spy, not a single time, but there’s obviously something very suspicious about me, because nobody ever believes me. I am never the spy! Spoiler alert, Sara is ALWAYS the spy. I think the universe is trying to tell her something.

I also always make the first mission leader specify what exactly we are resisting against, and each individual mission leader specify what exactly the mission is. I think this adds a lot of fun to the game, and gives you something to talk about if you’re not chosen to go on the mission. I just like to imagine what kind of secret missions my friends and family are going on in order to disrupt the Evil School Administrator Overlords, or the 4 Year Olds in Strollers status quo.

Anyway, enjoy. Let me know in the comments if you give it a try.