THE RESISTANCE

OBJECTIVE OF THE RESISTANCE: The objective of The Resistance is to help your team to succeed in three missions… or to sabotage them.

NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 5 to 10

MATERIALS: 

  • 11 Identity cards
  • 5 cards Escouade
  • 20 Voting cards (10 Yes and 10 No cards)
  • 10 Mission Cards (5 Fail and 5 Pass)
  • 6 score tokens (3 blue and 3 red)
  • 1 progression token (black)

TYPE OF GAME: Hidden roles shenanigans

AUDIENCE: Teen, Adult

OVERVIEW OF THE RESISTANCE

The Resistance is a secret roles card game in which Spies hide among the members of the Resistance in order to defeat the Resistance’s missions.

SETUP

Distribution of roles

Depending on the number of players, Spies and Resistance fighters are spread differently:
5  players: 3 Resistance fighters, 2 Spies
6  players: 4 Resistance fighters, 2 Spies
7  players: 4 Resistance fighters, 3 Spies
8  players: 5 Resistance fighters, 3 Spies
9  players: 6 Resistance fighters, 3 Spies
10 players: 6 Resistance fighters, 4 spies 

Each player receives one Role card (there are 10).
The player can be either Spy (4 red cards symbolized by an eye) or Resistance fighter (6 blue cards symbolized by a closed fist).

The Leader is determined at random, preferably an experienced player. That player will manage the game, but might lose his role if the other players vote against his Squad proposals.

Spy recognition

When the identity cards have been dealt out and everyone has become aware of their role, the Leader must make the spies recognize each other by calling the following instructions out loud:

  1. All players close their eyes.
  2. The Spies open their eyes and then look at the other players to recognize each other
  3. The Spies close their eyes, so that everyone’s eyes are closed again.
  4. All players open their eyes.
Example of a 6 player game setup

GAMEPLAY

Each round consists of 2 phases: Squad Formation and Mission.

The Squad PhaseThe Leader must form a Squad to go on a mission. He designates the players he wishes to assign to the next mission.
The size of the squad differs depending on the number of players in the game and on the current turn.

Total number of players5678910
Turn 1 Squad222333
Turn 2 Squad333444
Turn 3 Squad243444
Turn 4 Squad334555
Turn 5 Squad344555
The Leader proposes himself and the top right player for the 1st turn Squad.

Once the Squad is formed, all players vote to authorize or not the mission to be performed by the designated Squad.
If the majority (or half) of the votes are to accept the mission, the Squad is approved and goes on mission (Mission Phase).
If the Squad is rejected by a majority of players, the player to the left of the Leader becomes Leader and the Squad Phase is restarted.

Important: if 5 Squads are rejected in a row during the same turn, the Spies instantly win the game.

4 votes against 6 in favour of the proposal: Squad accepted!

The Mission Phase

To determine the outcome of the mission, each Squad member chooses whether or not to sabotage the mission. The Leader gives each Squad member a Mission Successful card and a Mission Failed card. Each player chooses one of his two cards and gives it face down to the Leader, who shuffles and reveals them.

The mission is completed if no Mission Failure card has been played.

The two squad members have played a Mission Successful card: the mission is a success, the turn marker is advanced to Turn 2, and a blue marker is placed on space 1.

END OF GAME

Resistance fighters win as soon as they win 3 missions.
Spies win as soon as they win 3 missions. 

The game therefore lasts between 3 and 5 turns (unless there is an instant win after 5 failed Squad votes in a row).

Close victory of the Resistance fighters at the end of turn 5!

NOTES

The game is designed to make it very difficult for Resistance fighters to identify skilled and well-organized Spies. The main information to analyse carefully are

  • the votes for the Squads, for which everyone’s vote is visible
  • the results of Mission, for which the perpetrators of possible sabotage are not known

VARIATIONS

Targeted Attacks: Instead of completing Missions in the suggested order, the Leader can choose which Mission is completed (which affects the number of Squad members). However, each Mission may only be completed once (even if it fails). In addition, the fifth mission can only be completed after two other successful missions.

Isolated spies: to make the work of the spies harder, they do not recognize themselves at the beginning of the game.

Nakoa Davis
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