Coup: Scheming is all fun and games

You are head of a family in an Italian city-state, a city run by a weak and corrupt court. You need to manipulate, bluff and bribe your way to power. Your object is to destroy the influence of all the other families, forcing them into exile. Only one family will survive…

That's the synopsis of this card game called Coup that I've been play. Published by Indie Boards and Cards, it has :rules, roles, and :specific actions you can do strategically to win.

tl;dr: You can do any of the actions or claim to have any of the influence cards and the only time it will become a problem is when you are challenged by another player. (It's confusing at first, but you get the hang of it—here's a full list of rules and a place you can play it online.)

Making it more fun (for me)

Because my brain is the way it is, I take a storytelling/roleplaying approach in my mind whenever I play. While I love the family head in the Italian city-state premise, it gets boring after a while. So I mentally modernize it.

I see the players as industry leaders/society big wigs and the influence cards as their right-hands who are ultimately pawns vying for survival. It's grim, dark, and wholly unnecessary... So of course I love it! For example...

When I played with a few friends, I asked them what industries/society sectors they'd like to be in charge of if they had the choice. I chose entertainment, Tom chose prostitution, Estef chose something akin to the Food and Drug Administration/spirits, and Sam chose the judiciary system.

During the game, I blocked an assassination attempt on Tom by Sam. In my mind, Sam's Assassin card filtered through the judicial system filter became a binding order to cease all economic activities. So, my Contessa card filtered through the lens of entertainment sector, was a media campaign to turn public opinion against the ruling.

Because I had 2 tokens and had not previously had an alliance with Tom, he didn't know why I would choose to defend his industry, especially since he had 2 influence cards and 8 tokens while Sam only had 1 influence card and 4 tokens. I didn't reveal it, but my plan was to weaken and discredit the judicial system in its moment of vulnerability so that I could make more profits off unregulated entertainment while ingratiating myself to the only other player who had enough tokens to do a coup and a turn coming up soon.

Defending prostitution allowed me to increase my industry's control over society at the expense of law and order. Is that good for society? Probably not. But the aim of the game isn't to improve society—it's to become the most powerful player by knocking all your competition to the ground and forcing them to suffer humiliation from which they could never redeem themselves.

Told you it could be grim.

Spinning Coup

I do this in my head because it makes an already fun game even more exciting. But if I were to improve the game, I'd redesign the game superficially to create a new edition (i.e.: New Media Edition) where everyone plays within an industry. I have another :un-fleshed out idea, but this would be the one I run with.

Coup: New Media Edition

Set in our world with Succession level of wealth, players take on the role of modern aristocrats for whom money is no object. Because their money is so secure and their public image is not, each token represents 1 billion people who view you positively, effectively replacing money with public opinion. In this arena, influence cards literally become influencers, people you can call upon whose actions impact the public standing of the players. Which change the rules as follows:

• Draw 1B of income in public opinion.
• Draw 2B of foreign aid in direct public opinion; any player with the duke Celebrity can block this action.
• Pay 7B to stage a coup cancel someone, forcing a player of your choice to reveal one influence; this action cannot be blocked.
• The ambassador Investor can draw two new roles and choose to exchange any of them with their remaining hidden influences.
• The assassin Journalist can spend 3B to expose a player of their choice, making the player reveal an influence. If the targeted player has the contessa PR Specialist, they can block the assassination exposure.
• The captain Manager can steal 2B from another player. If the targeted player has the ambassador Investor or the captain Manager, they can block the action.
• The duke Celebrity can claim tax sponsorship, gaining 3B.

As for a story that can be told... let's make a story about Dan and Jean, two socialites who run in the same upper crust circle (both start out with 2B in public influence). Dan is the son of royalty and Jean is an heiress of the company Desla.

They are both already well-known but are in dire need of validation from whom Dan once called "the unwashed masses" during an event years ago at school. They each go to various high-profile events (+1B for Dan/+1B for Jean).

Dan sponsors celebrity Rihyonce (+3B) to increase his own public image as someone the public should want to be like.

Jealous of her frienemy's growing success, Jean hires a journalist (-3B) to expose Dan using his own words against him. Dan blocks this by having his PR Specialist keep public opinion in Dan's favor.

Jean tries to use her recent philanthropy campaign "save the rhinos" to gain direct public approval (+2B), but Dan has Rihyonce make a visual album about why rhinos are dumb and don't need saving.

In the meantime, Dan's Rihyonce sponsorship (+3) has gained him an almost godlike image among the population. Jean gets photographed at the MET Gala (+1) in a gorgeous gown.

High off his success, Dan unleashes a media blitz against Jean, her family, her family's company, her family's history in unsavory practices, their legal troubles, etc. to get her unequivocally and irrevocably cancelled.

In the end, the idea is to bring an already exciting game even closer to life and inspire storytelling in a way that's collaborative and unique. I hope I inspired you to storify the games you play, or at the very least, inspired you to pick up a copy of Coup. Here's where I'd put a sponsored link if I were sponsored, but alas, I am not. So, check it out here.

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:x The Rules

Each player begins the game with two roles which are secret from the other players; these are your influences. Through various actions, players can be forced to reveal an influence. When both of a player's influences are revealed they are knocked out of the game. The last player with one or more unrevealed influences wins.

There are five different roles: ambassador, assassin, captain, contessa and duke. Each player's influences are drawn from a pool of 15, containing three of each of the five roles. If there's more than 6 players, for each 2 additional players, the influences pool will contain 1 additional card for each role. E.g. 7-8 players will have 4 of each, 9-10 players will have 5 of each, etc. Each player also starts with $2, drawn from an unlimited central store of money.

:x Roles and Actions

At the start of their turn, a player performs one of several actions. Some actions can always be played, while others require a specific role:

• Draw $1 of income.
• Draw $2 of foreign aid; any player with the duke can block this action.
• Pay $7 to stage a coup, forcing a player of your choice to reveal one influence; this action cannot be blocked.
• The ambassador can draw two new roles and choose to exchange any of them with their remaining hidden influences.
• The assassin can pay $3 to make a player of their choice reveal an influence. If the targeted player has the contessa, they can block the assassination.
• The captain can steal $2 from another player. If the targeted player has the ambassador or the captain, they can block the action.
• The duke can claim tax, gaining $3.

After playing an action, the other players have an opportunity to block the action or to challenge it. After this, the turn passes to the next player.

:x Sector Cards

:Sector cards would allow each player to choose from some industry or sector in society and would be chosen in the beginning of the game. Each would contain a specific list of customized add-ons for your influence cards and inspire players to contextualize their actions in a way that created a story.

But that would deserve a post all it's own, so because I value your time, you're getting the New Media edition.