LogFAQs > #896573984

60. Coup
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/131357/coup

Genre/mechanics: Hidden roles, bluffing, role selection
Rules complexity: 4/10
Game length: 15-30 minutes
Player count: 3-6
Experience: 10+ games with 4-6 players
First played: 2015

In Coup, you're dealt two cards face down, which can each be one of five different roles. On your turn, you take an action, often one that's associated with a role, such as gaining money spending money to deal damage to an opponent. When the action you take is associated with a role, an opponent can call you out and ask you to demonstrate you have it. If you have it, they lose health. If you don't have it, they lose health. Goal is to be the last man standing.

Enjoyment - Coup did not make me feel good when I first played it. We played with six, including some slow people, and at least one player who was way too eager to challenge. She took one turn and watched for forty minutes. The next time I played, it was with four and with strangers, and I kept wondering what I was doing at this strange meetup. Thankfully, since then, games have gone much faster overall, and now I consider it a solid way to introduce others to gaming, or to play a quick game that takes little table space or thought.

Design - The best part of Coup's design is probably how compact it is. I do like the roles, but that's perhaps more out of familiarity than admiration. But the components are literally fifteen cards, reference sheets, and money chips. That's a lean footprint. The rule-set is also simple, with one action per turn. Probably the biggest barrier of Coup as a game is how long it takes to get to know the rules - again, familiarity changes the picture, but it's tiresome to have to check the reference sheet all the time and see what options are available to you when you don't know the game well.

Also, the game isn't perfectly strategic. Aside from luck and being-ganged-up-on (which cannot be overcome), Coup has a nasty endgame glitch where if three players each have 1 remaining health and have enough to perform a coup to deal damage, then whoever acts first guarantees themself a loss. It's a hilariously dumb situation to find yourself in, but there you go.

Future - Hardly shocking, but I'm not exactly clamoring to get Coup to the table as a centerpiece. But if it's with people newer to gaming, I think it would be a nice one to have in the back pocket.

Bonus question - What is your favorite role in Coup? If you haven't played Coup, what game would you use as an intro to competitive games for others?

Hint for #59 - For when you don't want to Race.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness