Game Review – The Resistance: Avalon (Tabletop)

When it was released, The Resistance became a pretty big deal. It improved on and solidified the social-deduction genre into something that gamers really enjoyed. The game is super simple, uses minimal components, and keeps every player involved in the game until the end (no “game master” needed). Several expansions were released containing all sorts of variations on the original gameplay, and some of these were put together in an upgraded but still quite simple package in the form of The Resistance: Avalon, with the theme of the game changed from Sci-Fi to Arthurian Fantasy. This is the version that I own and have played so many times; let’s take a look at what’s good and bad about it.

As far as theme goes, I don’t care that much, especially since it doesn’t really affect the game (as evidenced by the fact that they changed it so drastically), but I do like the knights/fantasy theme slightly better if only for the artwork. I don’t rely on the theme too heavily when teaching the game (the fact that the “king” changes every round is a bit strange), but it can help draw people in who otherwise might not consider playing.

Actually playing the game is fairly simple. Most of the players are “good-guys” (knights of the round table) who don’t know who anyone else is, and a minority are “bad-guys” (minions of the evil Mordrid) who know the identity of the other bad guys. There are five “missions” in every game; if 3 succeed the good-guys win, if three fail the bad-guys win. A designated player will select a group of players to go on a mission and everyone will vote on them. If the vote fails enough times the mission will fail, but if the vote passes everyone will get two cards that say either “success” or “fail.” Good-guys must put in “success” cards while bad-guys can put in either. It only takes one “fail” card for the mission to be considered a failure (most of the time). Players move from round to round trying to identify who the bad-guys are and exclude them from the later missions.

Even on its own this is actually a pretty fun game (and it’s basically all the standard Resistance game is), but things get much more interesting when some special roles get added in. The most basic and playable is Merlin, who knows who the bad-guys are. But if you play with him, the Assassin player is also added to the game, and if the good-guys win, the Assassin gets one shot to reveal Merlin and turn the tide. Additionally for good there is Percival, who knows the identity of Merlin, and for evil there is: Mordrid, who is unknown to Merlin; Morgana, who appears to be Merlin to Percival (thus he sees two Merlins); and Oberon, who does not appear to the other evil players (and is thus a detriment to them, not an asset). There’s even a few more variations such as the Lady of the Lake, which lets you see other players’ loyalty (and only really works in larger groups).

Together (Merlin is technically in the basic game, but I like to first have a “teaching” round without him for new players) these make an excellent package with all kinds of variations for all different player counts (5-10), and I have yet to play a game that did not go over well (except with me, which I’ll get to). The mechanisms are simple, but clever enough that players always have an exciting (and sometimes stressful) time puzzling out who’s who in time for that final, critical mission. There’s a lot of different things you can read into, from how they voted, to who they chose for a mission and whether a mission they went on passed or failed, and of course, if they’re your friends, you know how they play other games and what ticks they might have. Adding in the variations just spices things up that much more.

I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve played this game and had a blast; it’s tense and involving without being overly complicated. But I’ve started to get a little bit sick of it. It’s been a go-to game for when we have “new” players (or players who aren’t that into the “board” part of board games), when there isn’t much time, or with large groups of people (though this happens less often), and I have played it so many times, with so many variations. Things have just gotten repetitive, and the fact that most of my games have been played with 5 or 6 players doesn’t help that fact (I have a small game group). There is a distinct pattern: first round success, second round toss-up, followed by two (or one) successes and the assassin correctly fingering Merlin. Occasionally there is an upset and we go into five rounds, or the assassin is particularly bad, but still the pattern of the bad-guys winning “cheaply” remains. Attempting to change things up just gets me “Oberon isn’t fun” or a game that doesn’t quite work properly (in small games the Lady of the Lake is too powerful, the other bad-guys make it easier for evil, and even Percival doesn’t even things out). But that’s just me personally being burned out (I am the “game guy” and I’m the one with the copy we play every time), everyone else I play with has a blast.

If you are interested in the idea of social deduction games, if you like Werewolf and the like, or if you are just looking for a small, simple, and inexpensive game for a group of friends I would recommend this game. I have gotten way more than what I paid for in enjoyment out of it over the years, and the base The Resistance game is even cheaper. If you think you’re going to play it a lot and might get burned out like me I’d recommend getting that non-Avalon version and picking up some of the expansions along the way, there are options in those to make the game identical to Avalon gameplay-wise and a whole lot more (as of right now there are no expansions for the Avalon version). I would also recommend looking into card-sleeves. The game has bridge-sized cards, which are harder to find sleeves for, but you shuffle them A LOT, and Indie Boards & Cards has a habit of printing games where you shuffle a lot on relatively poor cardstock, this being no exception. The other components are all fine (the boards are basically card stock, but you don’t interact with them much and they don’t get damaged. And the tokens are all really nicely made), but be prepared for the game as a whole to get scuffed up from round after round of play.

Table Topics Family 37 #73-74

QUESTIONS

1. Where would you go if you were going to run away from home?

2. When is it okay to lie?

ANSWERS By: Austin Smith

1. I mean, I’ve moved out already, so I’ll just go the extra mile and say I’d try to get to Africa somewhere, since no where in the U.S. would really be better, I guess I’d have to go for something different.

2. If you or another person (people) would be harmed directly for unjust reasons given you tell the truth.

Speak Your MInd 12 #56-60

QUESTIONS

1. How old will you be when you graduate from high school?

2. Would you like to live in a mansion?

3. How do you feel about lying to your parents?

4. Are you in love?

5. What is your favorite soap opera?

ANSWERS By: Austin Smith

1. I am supposed to be 17 when I graduate, but if all goes to plan I will be 16 and it will be in a few weeks.

2. Only if I had a lot of people to fill it.

3. Depends, is telling a story lying, I find it quite alright to simply not tell the whole truth. But I would never lie about something that could hurt anyone.

4. Yes, madly.

5. I do not watch soap operas.

Lying to people who trust too much.

This is going to be short, but I can’t think about anything else right now. This is making me feel so… such and unquantifiable feeling.

About a week ago I saw the worst fake documentary in history, Mermaids: the body found. It was on the discovery channel at some ungodly hour (after some investigating I found it first aired on animal planet). The thing was proposing the idea that mermaids were still around, blah, blah, blah. I thought it was like those other discovery shows that use the thinnest evidence to support the most outrageous conclusion that could possibly be drawn, and I am used to those, it is interesting to hear what little evidence they have to offer. And so I watched, just watched, casually thinking it was some lame program, and then this happened.

I am not joking, this is in the documentary. And yes it is purposely blurred in an attempt to distract from the fact that it does actually look that fake. I should mention that this comes at the end of the most professional looking “cell-phone” video of all time. By that of course I mean the most fake. The entire thing is obviously fake, and is completely unnecessary to the documentary. I mean they could have just done what all other Discovery shows do and just show people talking, but no, they had to show this.

Now, why do I hate this so much? I mean, I wouldn’t blame you if you were saying “so what if the creators want to show off a little crappy CGI, what’s so bad about that?”. I’ll tell you, because people will believe it. I don’t care how crappy or fake it looks and is, people from now on will be saying “no man, mermaids are real, I saw it on the Discovery channel, they had a video and everything”. Some people really are that gullible/stupid. And they could have done without it entirely, it’s irresponsible of the creators and the Discovery channel to show this obviously fake video and claim it’s real. Because someone will believe it. And while it’s not alright that they did that, they still went further. If you went to check on the story’s credibility and found the website that supposedly belonged to one of the people interviewed in said documentary you found this.

Yes, that is a very fake Homeland Security seizure. And let’s thank the officers seizing it for providing us with the very specific badge that says “Special Agent”, even though no agents are actually there. Of course we all know that “a” United Stares District Court is the most trusted U.S. District Court there is.

I hate this! It is, like the video, obviously fake, but if looked at from far enough away appears to be real. And since it aired on both the Discovery channel and Animal Planet people will believe it. They will believe that there is video of mermaids, and that Homeland Security is trying to stop the truth from getting out. It is a completely irresponsible usage of this Science Docufiction piece. And I can’t get it out of my head the fact that now, along with all the other stupid conspiracy theories, we have to deal with mermaids. Why, why… mermaids?