I'm not the traitor. Trust me.
Exploring hidden traitor and semi-cooperative game mechanisms
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I’m working on a project that involves some robots that can’t be trusted, much like the ones in Inhuman Conditions. Got me thinking about hidden traitor mechanisms in games and how they can be built into both board games and TTRPGs.
So this week we are looking at hidden traitor games, semi-cooperative games, and adding secret roles to Mothership…
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Traitor games
One of the most memorable traitor games I’ve played is Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game (Konieczka, 2008).1 Based on the Sci Fi channel version of the series, everyone takes on the role of a character from the show. The crew deals with Cylon threats and political turmoil as they cooperatively try to keep the ship jumping to the next destination.
But at least one player is actually a Cylon working against team — a hidden traitor trying to sabotage the mission without being identified.
It’s an almost perfect example of a traitor game:
A traitor game can be seen as a kind of team game, or as a cooperative game with a betrayal mechanism. The traitors typically win by triggering a failure condition for the players. For this mechanism, a traitor game is characterized by traitors that begin the game with hidden identities, or are assigned them during the game.
Let’s take a look at how traitor games work and the challenges of incorporating traitor elements into game designs.
From Wink Murder to Werewolf
One of the earliest traitor games was called Wink Murder (or Murder in the Dark), a parlor game originating sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. Players gather together and one is secretly designated as the murderer with the objective to kill the other players:
Players walk around and mingle, talking to each other.
The murderer tries to make eye contact and wink at someone to “murder” them.
After a few seconds or counting to five, the person who was murdered dramatically pretends to die. They are then out of the game.
Players can accuse someone of being the murderer. If they are correct, they win the game. If they are incorrect, the accuser is eliminated and the game continues.
There are other variations of the game with an assigned “detective” or played with a second accuser.
Games like Wink Murder most likely influenced Dimitry Davidoff when he created the game Mafia sometime around 1986.2 Later re-themed and renamed to Werewolf by Andrew Plotkin, the game divides all players into two groups: Werewolves (small, informed minority) and Villagers (large, uninformed majority). Each werewolf knows who their fellow werewolves are, but the villagers do not know who is a werewolf.
There are countless variations of Werewolf available, both commercial and traditional, but the basic rules are as follows:
The game cycles between two phases, Night and Day:
Night: Players close their eyes and then only werewolves open their eyes. The werewolves silently choose a victim to kill. A moderator informs the victim that they have died.
Day: All players open their eyes and remaining players discuss who to accuse. An accusation prompts a vote to eliminate a suspected werewolf.
The game continues alternating between Night and Day until the game ends in one of two ways:
Villagers win if they successfully eliminate all werewolves.
Werewolves win if they eliminate enough villagers so that werewolves now outnumber remaining villagers.
Newer implementations of the game add special roles (e.g. Seer), with some version like One Night Ultimate Werewolf (Alspach & Okui, 2014) giving every player a role. In addition, newer versions are designed to reduce or remove player elimination from the game as this is often considered an outdated mechanism.
The evolution of social deduction games
In The Resistance (Eskridge, 2009) players are either part of the Resistance or Government Spies working against the movement.3 The addition of cards, tokens, and the shift in focus from eliminating players to running missions is an interesting twist.
Like Werewolf, the spies know who each other are and the resistance members are trying to catch them. A key difference is that each round has a leader who will select players to form a team (approved by group vote) to complete a mission. The selected members then submit a SUCCESS or FAIL mission card. The mission only succeeds if everyone submitted a SUCCESS card, but it is unknown who submitted each card.
Many lighter (i.e. party) games play with similar themes of social deduction, hidden roles, bluffing, group objectives, and player elimination. The Werewolf/Mafia family on BGG currently includes over 330 entries including popular games such as Blood on the Clocktower (2022), The Resistance: Avalon (2012), Secret Hitler (2016), and Among Cultists (2023). Games like Coup (2012) also have a similar feel.4
The semi-cooperative game
In almost all of the examples above, players win or lose as a team — either the werewolves win or the villages win. A really interesting innovation has been the idea of a semi-cooperative game:
A game in which players are cooperating and competing with each other throughout the game, while trying to complete a common objective… semi-cooperative games proceed similar to cooperative games but winning and losing objectives are triggered individually such that the outcome may be that no players win, all players win or some players win and some lose.
It’s a controversial design, and one that sparks debate even on what constitutes a semi-cooperative game (versus, for example, a game with individual goals and negotiation).
Dead of Winter (Gilmour-Long & Vega, 2014) is one of the first times I encountered this genre of game. In Dead of Winter players must work together to stay alive in a zombie apocalypse, but each player also has their own secret objective.
If the main, survival victory condition is not met, everyone loses. To individually win the game, however, a player must complete their personal, hidden objective… which is sometimes at odds with other players and with the main goal of survival.
This is sometimes called a Grand Winner format semi-cooperative game:
If the main objectives are met, everyone sort of wins, but there is an individual, overall winner of the game.
If the main objectives are not met, everyone loses are no one wins the game.
This Grand Winner format can sometimes lead to what many would consider a degenerate game state where a player (knowing they will not win overall) will tank or intentionally sabotage the main objectives.5 They would rather everyone lose together than have someone else win individually. This is a version of kingmaking, which is also a controversial topic.
Nemesis (Kwapiński, 2018) handles this problem by downplaying the overall objective when compared to games like Dead of Winter. The game is still structured around end states of either (1) all players lose or (2) one player wins. Cooperation is always, however, tentative and situational. There isn’t just one hidden traitor because everyone knows each player is looking out for themselves at the start of the game. Most objectives require cooperation between players to win, so it becomes more of a “competitive game with negotiation elements” rather than a semi-cooperative game.
Because of this, one might argue that Nemesis solves the semi-cooperative design problem by becoming something other than a semi-cooperative game.6
Semi-cooperative TTRPGs and hidden traitors
Most TTRPGs are fully cooperative games, with all players working toward a common goal. The focus is on story-telling and narrative rather than any one individual “winning” the game.
Notable exceptions exist such as the venerable Paranoia, the spy-themed Wilderness of Mirrors, or the disastrous plots of Fiasco. Players are encouraged to betray each other for their own interests.
So it can be done, but it is admittedly rare in the world of TTRPGs.
Hidden objectives vs. hidden traitors
Hidden objectives in TTRPGs can bring an element of the traitor genre into the game without going so far as someone actively working against the group.
I tried this in a recent, one-shot game of Mothership. After players had created their characters, but before we began, I handed out secret background cards to each player with the following rules:
I created four secret background cards for the three players. So one card will not be used in the game.
Players could not read all the cards ahead of time.
The cards are distributed (one to each player) secretly. Neither the GM nor the players know who received which card. Nor does anyone know which card was left out (i.e. the extra card).
Each player may choose if they want to use the card as a secret background or not. Their choice is kept secret.
The secret background cards included:
You are an android: You know you are an Android. You will do anything and everything to hide the fact that you are an Android. You will pretend to be a human at all times.
You hate all androids: Androids killed your loved ones. You won’t kill a friendly Android on purpose, but you’d be fine with them being killed. You aren’t happy about working with Androids.
You are a xeno worshiper: You are secretly obsessed with alien life. You are driven to come face-to-face with some form of alien life. You desire to worship the alien, but without others noticing.
You are a corporate mole: You secretly work for Apiary Heavy Industries. Ensure that any valuable items or creatures are returned to Apiary R&D on Earth and weaponized. You will do anything necessary to complete your corporate mission.
Each card also had some minor mechanical effects as well, such as the corporate mole getting a bonus to fear saves but a tougher sanity save.
This created a really interesting dynamic throughout the game, in particular because even I (as GM) didn’t know if anyone had decided to use the cards or not… and if they did, which one they had.
Everyone was confused when one player slipped an obviously dangerous parasite sample “because it might be useful later” into their pocket, but later realized they were the corporate mole. The same when an energy pulse only impacted androids, but a self-proclaimed “human” player was knocked out.
For a one-shot, it worked great! As part of a campaign, the charm would have worn off fairly quickly as it might devolve into intra-party battles.7
Challenges of semi-cooperative games
I really enjoy Nemesis as a narrative-focused game, and the secret background worked out well in the Mothership one-shot. Still, designing cooperative games with betrayal, traitors, and conflicting objectives is hard.
Here are some of the reasons why:
Kingmaking: I did a three-part series on kingmaking starting with the three-player problem and wondering if kingmaking is even a problem to be solved. It’s a complicated and controversial topic in games, and one that is inherent in most semi-cooperative games. Once a player realizes they can’t individually win, what is to stop them from wrecking the whole system so that everyone loses?
Balancing cooperation and competition: Nemesis attempts to create a more satisfying experience for players (vs. Dead Winter) by emphasizing competition vs. cooperation. Players still need to work together to win, but it is no secret that everyone is acting in their own self-interest. Move too far in that design direction and it’s just not a semi-cooperative game anymore.
Suspicion and accusations can slow down the game: Particularly in more open-ended narrative games, a session can easily shift focus from the main quest to simply trying to figure out who is the traitor. This can bog down the game and derail whatever plans the GM might have had.
Imbalanced hidden objectives: If there is a perception that some objectives were easier or harder than others, the game can feel unfair. This is particularly a problem depending on the kinds of fun players were expecting.
Again, as I mentioned with the special problem of naval games, just because these design challenges exist doesn’t mean they aren’t solvable. They are, however, things to keep in mind when introducing traitor-like mechanisms to a game’s design.
Conclusion
Some things to think about:
Social deduction / bluffing games are wildly popular: There’s a reason there are 300+ werewolf-ish games on BGG, and new social deduction games every day. They can be extremely approachable and yet also a lot of “thinky” fun.
Hidden traitors can work in TTRPGs: With a few caveats, hidden objective/traitor mechanisms can work in roleplaying games. They probably are better in one-shots than long running campaigns.
Semi-cooperative design is hard: I’ve seen board game reviewers immediately roll their eyes when they hear a game described as “semi-cooperative.” It’s a tough design space, but one that can produce really interesting games.
What do you think? If we use a broad definition of “semi-cooperative” which includes games like Battlestar Galactica, Dead of Winter, Nemesis, and Paranoia, is that a genre that you enjoy?
— E.P. 💀
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Due to licensing and other issues, the BSG board game has been out of print and will probably remain that way. Fantasy Flight Games released a reimplementation of the game called Unfathomable (Konieczka & Fanchi, 2021) with a Cthulhu / Deep Ones theme.
The exact history of Mafia/Werewolf isn’t known, but Dimitry Davidoff is credited with creating it in 1986. According to Davidoff, the first games were played in Spring 1987 at Moscow State University. Wired has an article called “Werewolf: How a parlour game became a tech phenomenon” from 2010 that has more details.
There are also Arthurian/fantasy reimplementations of The Resistance including The Resistance: Avalon (2012), Quest (2021), and Avalon (2022).
I’m not sure I would include Betrayal at House on the Hill (2004) in a list of hidden traitor games. Been a while since I’ve played, but the traitor is selected at random and is known. It is only the traitor’s powers and objective that are hidden.
Archipelago (2012) is another game that has similar victory conditions. If the rebels (i.e. the game) win, everyone loses unless one person was the hidden separatist, in which case they win. If the rebels don’t win and there is no separatist, then one person will be the individual winner.
Conner Alexander from Coyote & Crow Games created Wolves where, “Players take on the mantle of leaders of communities working to survive through a harsh winter.” It looks interesting but I haven’t yet been able to try it.
See also: “This is dumb. This is a dumb game.”
Alien RPG does short campaigns where everyone has a hidden agenda. In my opinion, the key to these in a TTRPGs is to ensure everyone 'seems' to have the combined mission at heart, at least at the start. Then maybe at the half way mark, it becomes clear certain players have alternative motivations.
In the three scenarios I've ran, two ended with characters killing each other. Which sounds dramatic and horrible but was good fun.
Hidden traitor games are great fun as board games. The safe space to lie outrageously to your friends is very appealing. In TTRPGs, I'm not a huge fan of any PvP, so having a hidden traitor is something I generally avoid. For me, RPGs are about telling a shared story, in which collaboration between players and the GM is vital, so having players (rather than just their characters) at cross-purposes is going to make that process difficult. And I think that's a reason why hidden traitor mechanics are limited in TTRPGs - the players end up motivated to win the game rather than have fun role-playing. It's hard to avoid metagaming or stay in character when that will mean you lose.
That's why focusing on individual hidden objectives is perhaps the better approach. Instead of it being a situation where some players win and the others lose, each player has the opportunity to "win". You could have objectives conflict: "destroy the generator" vs. "protect the generator", but the players are unaware that someone else has that conflicting objective.
Really interesting article on a fascinating topic!