One type of board game is the cooperative board game, where all players are working together to achieve a goal. In the last few years, there has been an exploration of the traitor mechanism, where one or more players are secretly working against the rest of the players to cause them to lose the cooperative game.

The most commonly known example of this game is the public domain game Werewolf (or Mafia), where the players are working as a team to unmask the Werewolves hidden in the group. These games allow you to explore group dynamics, bluffing, and bring deduction elements into play in gameplay that starts with indirect player interaction but moves into direct player interaction.

For Friday Games on Dec. 16th, Resident Scholar Scott Nicholson will first run a few games of Werewolf in a fishbowl style, where a group of players will play while others watch, and then the game will be discussed. After that, Nicholson will present a series of board and card games that use this element in different ways, such as Shadows over Camelot and Battlestar Galactica. Participants will then be able to try out and observe some of the shorter traitor-based games, such as The Resistance, Saboteur, and Panic Station.