The Traitors Review

If you have been watching the BBC recently, there’s a good chance you’ll have seen a reality show called The Traitors. 22 ordinary folk, a cavalcade of black Range Rovers, one Scottish castle, and Claudia Winkleman wafting around in oversized turtleneck jumpers. Given her penchant for heavy fringe-action, if her collars get any bigger, I’m pretty sure she will disappear entirely!

Any hoo, the idea of the show is that everybody is competing to win a maximum prize pot of £120k. They work in teams to boost the cash, but really everyone is out for themselves. 3 of the contestants are traitors and the rest are “faithful”. Traitors pick off the goody-goodies one by one unless the faithfuls can expose the murderous mayhem makers first. It’s a cacophony of backstabbing, blaming, bizarre outpourings of fleeting affection, and honest-to-goodness betrayal. But psychological fisty cuffs generally makes for good telly.

And someone thought it would also make a good card game. Bring the murder for money motivation to game nights everywhere with The Traitors Card Game!

Mo Money, Mo Murder?

You’ll need at least 3 other treacherous terrors to play The Traitors as is it for 4 – 8 players. As our household is usually a 2-3 bods around the board affair, we drafted in our not-yet-game addicted but willing friends.

I should point out that this is not technically a social deduction game. You won’t be eyeballing your opponents throughout the rounds to see who is letting slip their traitorous ways like they do on screen. It’s a card drafting game where you are trying to collect as many gold coins as you can. But faithfuls and traitors abound and so there is a link back in there somewhere!

So, having committed to cards, you decide how many rounds you want to play. And each turn, you draw a card from the deck and play a card from your hand. To increase the prize pot, those players who are faithful will need to work together to bump up the coffers. I mean, you can keep gold cards in your own stash (selfo!), but adding them to the collective treasure pile boosts the potential winnings at end game. And if you’re sharing the loot, I bet you’d rather have a share of more than less!

Night time is when murder takes place. Just like the TV show, those players who have a Traitor card can bump off an unsuspecting faithful. When the deck reveals a night card (which get added in after players have been dealt their hand), one Traitor per round can attempt a murder with a weapon card. If the victim has no shield, they are offed until the next round and the Traitor gets all their cards. A round ends when the Last Night Card at the bottom of the deck is revealed or there are just two players left.

Those two get a couple more turns then if they are both still in the game, it’s time for the Traitor’s Dilemma to decide what they want to do next. Now, if you are one of the final two, you can pop your hoodie up and pretend to huddle in a stone turret a la the BBC. Or you can just take a Faithful and a Betrayal card and decide what you are in your heart; pure or devilish!

If you both choose to reveal a Faithful card, you'll split the collected gold coins from the pot thus far. If only you choose betrayal, you get everything. If you both choose Betrayal, everything in the shared hoard is lost! Then a new round begins with all players resurrected. Whoever has the most gold coins at the end of the final round is the winner!