Turncoat 2013

Werewolf (or as it is sometimes called, Mafia) was always a fantastic game for me, and one I played a lot in my early university years. It is a game of two teams, but of unknown identities. It is an interesting mix of old and new design concepts; the heated discussion and bluffing generated by Werewolf is very modern; whereas the player elimination and sitting around is becoming ever more rare with each new design. One immensely popular (but lengthy) board game involving traitors is Battlestar Galactica, by Corey Konieczka. It sets players on a spaceship, trying to collectively ward off dangers, which would be easier, were it not for the traitor in the midst. I have extracted the game's clever system of sabotage-by-card, and came up with Turncoat. In a similar manner, but here on Earth, players must complete five missions successfully or succumb to the mole.

—description from the designer

This game is part of Femtitva, a collection of 10 games by Scott Huntington that were inspired by popular modern games but can be played with a traditional deck of cards.

In Turncoat, an "identity deck" consisting of 10s and a Joker is dealt out to the players, with the player getting the Joker being the secret "turncoat". A game consists of several missions. On your turn you look at the top two cards of the deck and select one for the mission; all players then play a face down card and add one from the deck before shuffling and revealing them; cards that match the suit of the mission card add to the total while others subtract from it. On a turn a player can accuse another of being a turncoat, but you must be right to win. Otherwise the game is won by the team if they succeed in 5 missions, and won by the turncoat if the team loses 5 missions.

—user summary