Unfiltered Story #28140

(My family loves playing the board game ‘Avalon’. In a nutshell, there are two teams, but nobody knows who is on which team except for themselves. In this particular round, three of the five players have special powers: Merlin can see the bad guys around the table (a good guy himself), The Assassin needs to work out who Merlin is for an automatic victory (bad guy), and Mordred is immune to Merlin’s ability and remains hidden (bad guy). In addition, the two bad guys know who each other are. We each get dealt one of the five cards, look in secret, and close our eyes.)

Announcer: “Minions of Mordred, open your eyes and look for your allies.”

(Myself and my younger sister open our eyes, she is Mordred and I am the assassin.)

Announcer: (goes through the remainder of the spiel) “Everyone, you may open your eyes.”

(With me going first to choose a team, I have a perfect plan to win.)

Me: “I’m going to put me and [younger sister] on the first team.”

(For each team that is proposed, the group must vote either the team is accepted or rejected. Since nobody knows anything yet, the first team almost invariably gets unanimously accepted.)

Brother: “Okay, the team is [Younger Sister] and [my name], here are the cards. (hands us our vote cards, consisting of Success and Fail, only one of the latter is required to fail a mission.)

(I put a Fail into the pot, and lo and behold, there is one success and one fail in the pot, Failing the mission.)

Me: Okay, so that’s one bad guy down, now to work out who the other is.

Younger Sister: (looks confused at being the scapegoat, and remains adamant she didn’t put the fail in)

(the next player selects all three good guys for the 3-player mission, which gets accepted and passes the mission no problem.)

Brother: “Well I wasn’t expecting that.”

Me: “Someone from that team is playing you, because there was one bad guy from my mission, and I’m not it. Which means it is one of you three.”

(It is now Brother’s turn to pick the team, at 1-1 score. He picks me and him)

Older Sister: “I don’t like this team.”

Brother: “We don’t have enough information, and we need to work out who the other bad guy is.”

Mum: “If this team is successful, it is likely that one of the players from the second mission is a bad guy.”

OS: “Are you saying I’m the other bad guy?”

(We argue for a minute or two before voting, and both [Mother] and [Older Sister] reject the team, making it a 3-2 pass. I once again select Fail for my card.)

OS: “I have a bad feeling about this.”

(The pot is revealed, Success and Fail, for a second failure. It is now pretty obvious I am a bad guy, which is exactly what I was aiming for.)

Me: “Two for two! (laughs evilly) yes, I am the bad guy who made you think I was a good guy, and we are one fail away from victory!”

(while it wasn’t obvious to her at the time, I was intentionally outing myself as the assassin to protect her as Mordred, since Merlin already knows who I am, they now have to work out who Mordred is, while I sit back and work out who Merlin is. I decide to throw another curveball into the mix.)

Me: “Oh, and by the way, [younger sister] is the other Bad guy.” (cue denials and lies from [younger sister] whose turn it is next.)

(As the team debates who to put on the mission, each trying to convince [younger sister] that they are not the bad guy, I am quietly observing who says what looking for tells. My suspicions fall on [older sister] who has been most vocal about not trusting me.)

OS: “I don’t think we should put [younger sister] on the team.”

YS: “Why not?”

OS: “Just in case [my name] is telling the truth and trying to double-bluff us. You know how crafty he is.”

Brother: “So you’re saying [younger sister] is in fact the other bad guy, and [my name] intentionally put himself and her on the same mission, and THEN he decided to fail it?”

Mum: “Sounds like something he would do.”

YS: “Well, I don’t trust [older sister], I think she could be the other bad guy, trying to get onto the team so she can fail it.”

(She moves the team tokens in front of Brother, Mum and herself.)

OS: I am not the bad guy, really! This team cannot go!”

(We vote, and it is a 4-1 split to accept the team.)

Me: (Grinning massively and being very silent)

OS: “We’ve lost. I’m not the bad guy.”

(The team picks their cards and lo and behold, there is a fail amongst them.)

Me: (high fiving [younger sister]) “Oh and by the way, [older sister], are you Merlin?” (she turns over her character in astonishment, it is Merlin)

OS: “How did you work that out?”

(I explained my strategy to them, how the placement of the players was key and how I had to protect Mordred, so I took the heat for the fails. [younger sister] was sitting in amazement the entire time, as she was completely clueless as to what I was up to, and amazed at how I managed to play all four of them like a fiddle.)