The Resistance: Avalon is a 5-10 player game designed by Don Eskridge. The game plays in about 30 minutes and plays best with 7 players.
At the start of every game, players will be randomly assigned to a team. All players will go through a dialog that allows for the minions of Mordred to know who each other are. These players will attempt to thwart the servants of Arthur in their attempts to complete quests without giving it away that they are playing for the evil side. If a minion of Mordred manages to get themselves on a quest mission, they can cause it fail. Servants of Arthur must use a healthy amount of discussion, accusation, and deduction to determine who is loyal to whom. There are a total of five quest that will need to be attempted during the game. If Servants of Arthur complete 3 of the 5 quest they win. If the Minions of Mordred can cause 3 of the 5 quests to fail, they win.
When you get a game that doesnt have a typical board you dont expect a ton in the box. Maybe some simple cards to represent players and voting, but this game doesnt do that. They have a card or tile for each different voting phase, character cards, and score markers. All components are done with high quality materials. The cards are made of a slightly firmer material then a typical card you find in board games. Im sure this was more expensive to produce, but will survive many more games. The tiles are a little heavier and thicker than you would find in a typical game. Both the tiles and cards quality are a nice touch. The artwork on the bits isnt super extravagant, but looks good and fits the theme. Very high marks in the component department.
Each game starts with one character card for each player shuffled into a deck and dealt. There is a set number of good and evil cards in the deck depending on the number of players in the game. After players have looked at their cards, someone will read a script that allows for the minions of Mordred to all know who each other are. This allows them to know who to secretly work with to win the game. What makes Avalon different than the first game in this series is the different roles that are in the game. There are six character cards that give players specific information about other players that is only known to them. Four of these character cards are best suited for larger groups when you want to add more elements to the game. For this segment of the review I will only be talking about a game with two other cards, Merlin and the Assassin. This is the recommended by the publisher as the first character cards to add to the game. During the same script above, Merlin will learn the identity of the minion of Mordred players. The Merlin player must not be overt that he knows these players, because the Assassin can win the game for evil if he is able to pick Merlin at the end of the game. But enough about the start of the game. We should talk about process of completing a round. A round of play will consist of a team building phase and a quest phase. A player will be assigned the leader for this round. That player will use what he knows to propose a team to go on this quest. Each quest has a different number of players to be sent and the players will then vote if they approve of the team. If it is rejected, the next player will suggest a team. If five consecutive teams are rejected, evil team wins. If the quest. These players will get a pass or fail mission card. Each player cast their vote and if a single fail card is played, the quest fails. Pass or fail, a token is added to the quest track to mark the progress. Then a new player is selected to choose a team for the next quest. This will continue until one side has completed three quest successfully or three quests have failed. If the Arthur team has won, the Assassin has one last chance to win for the evil side if they can correctly pick the Merlin player. Rounds move very quick, with discussion and accusations flying on who was on what side.