Salem 1692 Card Game: New Edition

Rumours have it that there are witches living amongst the townspeople of Salem. As accusations start to fly, can you spot your occult neighbours and save yourself, and the town? Or will the witches completely take over the town? Salem 1692 is a 2-12 player social deduction game from Façade Games who have a strong reputation for packing a lot of game into amazing boxes that look like books slotted on yourself. Note that this is a different game to Affliction Salem 1692 that I’ve also reviewed, but I think it’s worth calling out given how similar the names are.

Players will be trying to identify the witches amongst the group by making accusations and playing other cards to help or hinder those around the table. If the witches are the only players left, they win, but if the townspeople will be victorious if they correctly identify all the witches.

Setup

This is an easy one to get to the table, as the box has 2 decks of cards, a sand timer (only ever used to hurry indecisive players along – I’ve never needed it) and a small gavel which we’ll get to soon. You start by dealing each player a random character card that will introduce a little bit of asymmetry and give everyone a different ability they can use throughout the game. If you’re playing at lower counts (e.g. 5-6 players) you can deal everyone two cards and let them choose one. Then take the corresponding grey background cards with the characters in play for the game and set it off to one side. You’ll need this later.

As with Affliction Salem 1692, all the characters are real people living in Salem at that time who were part of the infamous Witch Trials, and similarly, the rulebook contains a little history on each person at the back.

From the Tryal deck you’ll take the Constable card and the number of Witch cards shown by the table in the rulebook. This scales up nicely as you’ll only have one witch in games with five players or less game but two in games with six or more. You’ll then add a lot of “Not A Witch” cards so that there’s five cards per player, so a 6-player game has 1x Constable, 2x Witch and 27x Not A Witch, making 30 in total. These are shuffled and five are dealt face-down to each player.

You’ll look at your Tryal cards, making sure to take extra care if you have a Witch or Constable card and then arrange them face-down in front of you in any order you choose.

From the Salem deck you’ll remove the Black Cat, Conspiracy and Night cards, shuffle the rest and deal three to each player as their starting hand. Then shuffle the Conspiracy card into the deck, place the Night card on the very bottom and put the Black Cat card face up on the deck or the table, in easy reach of everyone. Be prepared to be bewitched…!

The Mark Of The Black Cat

Before you begin taking turns, the witches will act. You can play with a moderator whose role is only to run the game – they don’t take part – or with a town crier, who is one of the active players but is directing important parts of gameplay. Every time I’ve played, we’ve just used a town crier approach and it’s worked fine, though if you’ve got someone who’s happy enough to moderate, it’ll remove the risk of someone making a noise and accidentally revealing themselves.

To begin, have everyone close their eyes, then ask the witches to open their eyes, silently agree a player to take the Black Cat and place it in front of the chosen player. Everyone should then close their eyes again and then all open at once. You’re ready to begin!

A few notes on how we’ve done this in practice of Salem 1692 which might help… I’ve always had everyone stand up before people close their eyes to avoid any chairs scraping in case people are really reaching for the card. I’ve also asked everyone to knock on the table with one hand to create a little background noise to drown out anything else that might be a giveaway and that’s tended to work well too.

The rulebook gives a script for the moderator if you use one, and that’s easily adapted for whoever plays the town crier – typically counting down from 10 out loud so the witches have a fixed amount of time to place the Black Cat and let everyone else know too. All of this can be done pretty easily, but it helps to either have someone who’s played before to do that role, or someone who’s confident in running it well.

J’accuse!

OK let’s start throwing some accusations around and see what sticks. On your turn you can either draw two cards from the Salem deck, or play as many cards from your hand as you like. Cards come in three types:

– Red – accusations to be played on other players. These can be single Accusations (worth one each), Evidence (worth three) or Witness (worth seven)

– Green – single use cards which have their effects resolved and then are discarded. These can make other players miss a turn, or take cards from one player and give them to another

– Blue – ongoing effects which are placed in front of another player and stay there until they’re removed by another card effect. The Black Cat card is one of these

There are also two black cards which we’ll come onto shortly – the Conspiracy and the Night card.

The main substance of the game is playing accusations on other players and trying to determine whether they’re a witch or not. Once someone has a total of seven accusations in front of them, whoever played the seventh gets to pick one of the face-down Tryal cards in front of that player and flip it. If it says “Witch” then that’s good news for you as a townsperson!

It’s mostly likely to say “Not A Witch” though – as we saw from the setup description above, for a six-player game there are only two Witch cards on the table.

Once you’ve flipped the card, the accusations are discarded and play continues.

Now might be a good time to introduce one of the Five Rules of Salem, and perhaps the most pivotal one. You can never play a card or take an action that directly affects yourself (with placing the Black Cat card in front of yourself being the sole exception). If you have a green card that allows you to take all cards from one player and give them to another, that’s great, but you can’t give them to yourself. If you have a blue card that stops anyone playing any accusations on its holder, that’s amazing, but you can’t give it to yourself. This game really promotes interaction at every stage and it’s brilliant.

Which Witch Is Which?

At some point, someone is going to draw the Conspiracy card from the deck and this must be played immediately. If the Black Cat is in play, whoever drew the Conspiracy card gets to turn over a Tryal card from the Black Cat’s owner. It might sound like a cute card to have, but it can set you back a lot. Assuming you don’t reveal the final Witch card, everyone then gets to choose a face-down Tryal card from the player to their left and place it in front of them in any order.

This might mean that you become a witch, adding to the number of suspects around the table. If you’ve lost your witch card to a neighbour, don’t worry, you’re still in the coven and still get to make witchy decisions – it’s just that people can’t find you out by Tryal anymore.

Nightfall

When you get to the bottom of the deck, night falls and the witches come out of hiding and get to act, followed by the town constable.

Firstly the witches get to choose someone to kill. If you’ve watched Traitors on the BBC or played Werewolf or Blood On The Clocktower, you’ll be familiar with this particular step. As you did when allowing the witches to place the Black Cat, everyone stands up/makes nose/closes their eyes and the witches make a kill. They do this by selecting a the grey-backed card that corresponds to the player they want to remove and placing it face-down on the table. Give them the usual 10 second warning etc.

Then our trusty constable comes into play. If you have this card in amongst your five Tryals you then get to place the little wooden gavel in front of someone (remembering you can never take an action on yourself), completely exonerating them and making them immune from the witches deathly touch. Again, 10 second countdown to give everyone fair warning.

When everyone’s opened their eyes and sat down again, there’s a chance to save yourself before you see who the witches have killed by confessing!

Starting with the player holding the Black Cat, you can choose to ‘confess’ by turning over a Tryal card to show you’re not a witch. Of course the player with the gavel in front of them is spared this decision. I’ll be honest and say this feels a little confusing because you’re not actually confessing of course, but making a strong case for not being a witch… perhaps it could have been called something different but in the scheme of the whole game, it really doesn’t matter.

After everyone’s had the opportunity to confess and saves themselves, the witches target is revealed. If they didn’t confess, they’re dead and out of the game, otherwise, shuffle up, put the Night card back on the bottom and keep playing!

How Does It End?

There are two ways this can go – either the witches kill the townspeople and they win, or the townspeople are victors by killing all the witches in play (including those who may no longer have the card in front of them).

There’s an added tension to it all though, because as soon as all five of your Tryal cards are face-up, you’re dead and out of the game so this builds in a sense of urgency to make some smart

accusations and get people out of the game. It also means that having the Black Cat and giving up a Tryal card every time the Conspiracy is revealed can put you on the back foot.

Final Thoughts

I really like this a lot. I’m not necessarily the best at social deduction games, and they definitely don’t all feel equal to me, but I think Façade Games have done a great job here. I also own Tortuga 1667 from them and I’ve reviewed that here too. There’s a huge amount of game in a small box, and when you get a group of people round the table, this really pops. I introduced it to a group and we played three times back-to-back – it’s that good.

There are some neat twists as well. You can end up with a Witch and Constable card, allowing you to be a malevolent law enforcer and seemingly acting in good faith. If there are two witches in the game, you can effectively protect someone for a large portion of the game which is neat. There’s also a small chance you end up with two Witch cards, meaning you want the Conspiracy out early in the hopes of passing one along to someone else.

There are rules in the box to play with 2-3 players using ‘ghost’ hands, but as with all games like this, it’s going to shine more and give you a better experience with more players, just because the overall uncertainty is greater.

Salem 1692 has a lot going for it with how simplistic it is, how much noise and energy it brings to the table, and some inevitable surprise as someone you were convinced was a townsperson is revealed as a witch. But above all that there’s nothing quite like the exhilaration of opening your eyes as a witch and finding your co-conspirators staring back at you with a devious smile.

I’d whole-heartedly recommend giving this a go if you get chance.