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- Q: In Are You The Traitor, with ten players, you have four alignment cards, but only three Wizard cards. How does this work?
- Q: In the case of an Evil Wizard in a four player game, how can the Keyholder ever win?
- Q: How do we deal out the character and alignment cards in a four player game?
- Q: The rules for Are You The Traitor mention you can’t use a Magic Ring on someone who just declared victory, but what about using it on a different player to try to get your own points higher?
- Q: What if someone uses a Magic Ring while other players are still counting up their points? If one of them turns out to have ten or more points, does that nullify the Magic Ring play, since the game is over as soon as someone wins?
Q: In Are You The Traitor, with ten players, you have four alignment cards, but only three Wizard cards. How does this work?
A: When you play with three Wizards, it’s crucial not only that that you don’t know what alignment they are, but also that you not know how many of each type you have either.
So you hand out all three Wizard cards, and when the time comes for them to choose alignment cards, you offer all four available. Three are picked, and the last one is set aside, sight unseen.
Voila! The gameplay state is achieved where you don’t even know what combination of Wizards you have: two Good and one Evil, or two Evil and one Good.
Q: In the case of an Evil Wizard in a four player game, how can the Keyholder ever win?
A: The Keyholder is not the only person who can take action to end the round. Remember that in the four player game, nobody knows who the Keyholder is, and the Wizard might be Evil or Good, only the Wizard knows their own alignment.
In the case of an Evil Wizard, here are the possible ending scenarios:
• (Evil) Wizard calls stop, correctly identifying the Keyholder out of three unknowns: Evil wins.
• (Evil) Wizard calls stop, incorrectly identifying the Keyholder out of three unknowns: Good wins.
• Guard calls stop, correctly identifying the Traitor out of two unknowns: Good wins.
• Guard calls stop, incorrectly identifying the Traitor out of two unknowns: Evil wins.
• Keyholder calls stop. In a scenario with an Evil Wizard, the Keyholder can only be incorrect, and Evil wins.
(Of course, it’s a 50/50 chance that the Wizard is Good, so in the opposite case, the Keyholder has an advantage. It balances out.
• The Traitor cannot call stop.
As you can see, it’s hardly impossible for the Keyholder to be on the winning team just because the Wizard happens to be Evil that round.
To round out the win/lose possibilities, of course, there are other outcomes if the Wizard is good:
• (Good) Wizard calls stop, correctly identifying the Traitor out of three unknowns: Good wins.
• (Good) Wizard calls stop, incorrectly identifying the Traitor out of three unknowns: Evil wins.
• Keyholder calls stop. In a scenario with a Good Wizard, the Keyholder can only be correct, and Good wins.
From the Keyholder’s perspective, of course, not knowing the alignment of the Wizard, they have a one in two chance, which is similar to the Guard.
Q: How do we deal out the character and alignment cards in a four player game?
… The character chart says 1 for each of the four character types, but still has 1 for each of the two wizard types. 5 character cards for 4 players.
A: Remember that the alignment cards are not dealt out until after the character cards are, so:
Deal out the character cards, one to each player. There are four of them, one per player. No problem.
Only one person is the Wizard. Now scramble up alignment cards one Good & one Evil and give the Wizard one randomly, face down, and put the unused alignment away with nobody else looking at it. The Wizard now looks at their alignment card. They are either Good, or Evil, and only they know which.
Voila! You have four characters: a Guard, a Traitor, a Keyholder, and a Wizard (who may be either Good or Evil).
Q: The rules for Are You The Traitor mention you can’t use a Magic Ring on someone who just declared victory, but what about using it on a different player to try to get your own points higher?
…We had a game where one player had 11 points, and another had 10 including a Magic Ring. Could they use the Magic Ring on a player who did not declare victory, to try to get their points up higher than the person with 11?
A: The FAQ in the rules reads: “Once someone has declared victory, it’s too late to use a Magic Ring on them.”
Really, it should be amended to read… “(or on anyone else, for that matter.)”
Strategically, you should always use a Magic Ring as soon as you get it, since there’s no advantage to holding it until later, only the risk that someone will declare victory before you declare your intention to use it.
See also What if someone uses a Magic Ring while other players are still counting up their points?
Q: What if someone uses a Magic Ring while other players are still counting up their points? If one of them turns out to have ten or more points, does that nullify the Magic Ring play, since the game is over as soon as someone wins?
A: No, the Magic Ring user gets to execute their steal before determining if anyone meets the win conditions. The first person to declare their action gets to take it first, so if someone declares that they’re using their Magic Ring, and you realize you have over 10 points, you might want to keep quiet about that until they’re done, so as not to become a target. Then, if you’re still at or over ten points when that’s done, you can start comparing scores with the rest of the players.