Clyde W
United States
Washington
Dist of Columbia
Red Team
#YOLO
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Hey all, I'm the proud owner of Saboteur and Sab2. I must admit I'm not a huge fan of either game, but I feel like hidden in here somewhere is a great game, worthy of playing every once in a while.
My main issue with the games are that it is fairly easy to detect the traitors. Anytime anyone does anything that hurts anyone else, they're most likely to be a traitor. So what are some house rules people have discovered that help with this issue?
What mix of roles do you typically play with?
How do you score at the end?
Do you set up the "board" slightly different from normal?
Do you change the game-ending condition in some way?
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, and I have a few ideas myself, but I'd like to hear what others say first.
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We score competitively at the end, so only loyal dwaves with unbroken tools share in the gold. This encourages loyal dwarves to break other people's tools, and helps obscure the saboteur.
Saboteurs also don't have to be blatant about it.
We generally play with the chance of one extra saboteur. For example, with 4 players, we'd put in 2 saboteurs and 3 loyal dwarves.
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Sheldon
Canada
Burnaby
British Columbia
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Hmm could be mostly due to that no one I play with takes this as a particularly deep game and just treat it as a light filler but we usually don't have too many problems with people identifying the traitor. Definitely doesn't break the game.
Wild accusations flow rampantly and the attack cards are placed out entirely based on hunches. We've had games where all the traitors were known and were able to shut down the dwarves just playing attack and avalanche cards. You usually don't want to play the good dwarves too good or you give yourself away if the next round you're a saboteur and you don't want to play the saboteur too bad right out of the gate, play well and start accusing others.
An optional rule that I believe is listed in the rulebook is any good dwarves that have negative effects placed on them can't share in the treasure, this can add to some additional backstabbing.
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Sheldon
Canada
Burnaby
British Columbia
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We usually use the same rule as Jay, where you toss in an extra potential saboteur so you're never really sure if you know all of them or not. Also the game doesn't play well with low player counts, needs more to shine.
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B C Z
United States
Reston
Virginia
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clydeiii wrote:
My main issue with the games are that it is fairly easy to detect the traitors. Anytime anyone does anything that hurts anyone else, they're most likely to be a traitor. So what are some house rules people have discovered that help with this issue?
This is wrong.
A 'good guy' can break the equipment of another miner so that they get more of the gold themselves. They can block or divert a path because they know that that way leads to coal.
Interpreting 'anything that hurts anyone else' as always meaning traitor means you are playing this game as a co-op. It's not a co-op.
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Clyde W
United States
Washington
Dist of Columbia
Red Team
#YOLO
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byronczimmer wrote: clydeiii wrote:
My main issue with the games are that it is fairly easy to detect the traitors. Anytime anyone does anything that hurts anyone else, they're most likely to be a traitor. So what are some house rules people have discovered that help with this issue?
This is wrong. A 'good guy' can break the equipment of another miner so that they get more of the gold themselves. They can block or divert a path because they know that that way leads to coal. Interpreting 'anything that hurts anyone else' as always meaning traitor means you are playing this game as a co-op. It's not a co-op. Quote: An optional rule that I believe is listed in the rulebook is any good dwarves that have negative effects placed on them can't share in the treasure, this can add to some additional backstabbing. I, obviously, agree that helps the game considerably.
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Chris Dieckmann
United States
Bronx
New York
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Also it's important to remember that only the color of dwarf that completes the path to the gold gets paid if there isn't a colored door in the way to the exit. This will also lead to "good" dwarves doing evil things to try and increase their share of the loot.
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Henry Allen
United States
Astatula
FLORIDA
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I've played Sab many times and find it amusing, though I acknowledge that it does have the issue you describe among others.
That being said, you also mention Sab 2 and lump it into the same boat as if it has the same issue. Do you have much experience with it yet? Granted, I've only gotten to play Sab 2 a couple of times so far but I really got the sense that these issues are resolved. In Saboteur 2 you have two different teams of good dwarfs, Saboteurs, Geologists (who are on neither team and are trying to do something different), plus some other guys who 'win' with any team but can really only score if a small team wins (thus they are motivated to try to play against whatever 'team' seems to have a lot of support).
With all of the possible motivations for actions (plus these doors that only one 'good' team or the other can use) there is way more room for a Saboteur to operate without tipping his hand right away. Obviously they CAN do something that marks them as a Saboteur but many good plays could overlap with something a good dwarf from the 'other' team or a geologist might do. This also means it is more likely to get 'false reads' where people are incorrectly marked as Saboteurs (taking more pressure off). Most importantly though, only one 'good' dwarf team can win so it is not as devastating to be marked as a Saboteur since the dwarf teams have each other to worry about and the geologists actually consider your game extending antics helpful.
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Julius Andrikonis
Lithuania
Vilnius
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Yes, I second that Saboteur 2 pretty much solves this problem, which was part of the base Saboteur game.
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Clyde W
United States
Washington
Dist of Columbia
Red Team
#YOLO
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So how big do you make the teams, what set of specials do you use, etc?
Do you use the attack cards from the first or the second or both?
Rules I think I want to play with for sure are
- during setup, place middle nugget 8 away
- once you flip over one nugget card the round ends
- once a player looks at a face-down nugget, no one else can
- the winning team gets 5vp each, any team with only one player on it that loses gets 2vp as a weak catchup mechanism
- have team sizes determined pseudo-randomly so you never know how many people are on your team
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Clyde W
United States
Washington
Dist of Columbia
Red Team
#YOLO
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KlydeFrog wrote: I've played Sab many times and find it amusing, though I acknowledge that it does have the issue you describe among others.
That being said, you also mention Sab 2 and lump it into the same boat as if it has the same issue. Do you have much experience with it yet? Granted, I've only gotten to play Sab 2 a couple of times so far but I really got the sense that these issues are resolved. In Saboteur 2 you have two different teams of good dwarfs, Saboteurs, Geologists (who are on neither team and are trying to do something different), plus some other guys who 'win' with any team but can really only score if a small team wins (thus they are motivated to try to play against whatever 'team' seems to have a lot of support). I agree Sab2 solved the issues I described but I think Sab2 adds a layer of complexity not seen in Sab1. That's not always a bad thing but I tend to play social deduction games with non-gamers and the more iconography, the more likely players will get confused or forget. I bought Sab 2 mainly for components and wish to mix and match for an elegant version that has the best of both versions. Ideally, you can play the game as Traitor while being as helpful as possible but still sabotage the good team, as in Resistance.
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Jonty
United States
Illinois
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clydeiii wrote: My main issue with the games are that it is fairly easy to detect the traitors. Anytime anyone does anything that hurts anyone else, they're most likely to be a traitor. So what are some house rules people have discovered that help with this issue?
I recall a game where one of the players played right from the start, not hurting others but playing paths that did not help towards the gold. We all thought he was the saboteur and attacked him. In the end, he was just a green dwarf and got some gold because his team won. When I asked why he did that, he said he took a gamble to draw attention and hoped his team would reach the gold.
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