Listen All Y'All

My gamer group is willing to try out just about any "hidden role / traitor" game that gets within our gravitational pull. At the same time, there are some in the group that really aren't that into lying to their friends, even in the context of a game. That's totally fine; it just means that a game like this needs to be pretty stand-out in some way to get more than a play or two. Saboteur isn't going to make the cut.

Saboteur is a card game in which the players are all trying to mine a path through a cave to reach a treasure of gold. It's played over three rounds; at the start of each, everyone is dealt a secret role to help the group or betray them. They're then dealt cards from a shuffled deck, some cards representing paths through the cave (straight paths and bends; Y or + junctions), and other cards representing either the failure or restoration of your mining equipment (lantern, mine cart, etc.) On your turn, you play a single card, then redraw and pass play around the table.

Path cards are played in a grid. To one side of the table, the players start on a + junction card. After a gap of several cards, three destination cards are placed face down to the other side -- one is the secret treasure, while the other two are empty. As you fill in the gap between with cards, you must respect all pathways from one card to the next, either trying to connect to the treasure (if you're helping), or twisting the path in a bad direction (if you're a titular Saboteur).

The equipment cards are played on another player. If any piece of their mining equipment has failed, they can't lay path on their turn until they (or someone else) plays a repair card on them to remove the block. These cards are used to hinder players you think are on the other team, or bring them back into action.

The game really only came onto our radar because of COVID-19. It's one of the games you can play at Board Game Arena, and one of the few there that can actually take a larger number of players. (After weeks of not seeing each other in person and countless games of 7 Wonders, we were open to alternatives.) It's easy to teach and fast to play -- and it would be with a physical copy of the game too. So: easier and faster than most hidden role games.

It also isn't especially satisfying. The gameplay is so straightforward that the hidden role element simply doesn't work. There's essentially nothing you can do as a saboteur that doesn't instantly give you away. So every round plays out in the same way: you go around the table about once before the traitors have to make a move, everyone figures out who's bad, and then the randomness of the card draws determines which side succeeds and which side fails.

Even the scoring has a dash of randomness to it. It's not quite at a Fluxx or Killer Bunnies level of chaos, but it's going to leave most experienced gamers cold. Grafting an ineffective hidden role aspect over the top of it doesn't really do much.

I think I'm going to give the game a C-. It's probably not even really that good. But it's so fast that I feel like if someone were really eager to play, I'd just suck it up and play it -- once -- before insisting on something else. It was kind of hard to actively dislike. It just also felt equally hard to like, to me at least.