Gerrymander

QUOTES FROM REAL PLAYERS -

"No Dad, you're a fascist!"

"It's like Secret Hitler and Two Rooms and a Boom had a baby. An evil, evil baby."

"Wait. What?! You're team good? Then why were you voting with the bad guys? --- You're bad? Awww man."

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This is Gerrymander, a social deduction game for five to thirty players. Yes, thirty. And you won't even need a moderator.

In Gerrymander, players try to rig the political game so they can implement their faction’s political agendas. How do they do this, you ask? By passing policies. How do you pass policies – great question!

In Gerrymander, players play in one of three regions: Region A, Region B, and Region C. Each turn, every region elects a representative to go to the Capitol to pass a policy. Once in the Capitol, the representatives draw one of three roles: • Drawing three policies and discarding one, • Receiving two policies and selecting one, • Acting on the new policy. This person is known as the action player.

Here’s the rub – Region A, Region B and Region C are in here. The Capitol is in a different area – over there (narrator points to where the capitol is.) The tokens to determine who does what role, policy deck, and step by step instructions will be in there.

While our representatives are at the capital, we can talk, throw shade, or conspire in here. The only thing we can not do is move from our region. Once they make a decision, they will return to the main playing area, and the action player will tell us what happens.

Policies generally have two effects: score a point for a political faction and impact the game. Most often, the action player can use a one-time-use special ability. Other times, regions may score a “point” or a faction may earn a new route to victory.

Play continues until a faction achieves its political agenda.

Liberals want to pass six liberal policies or live in a region that prospers. Fascists want to pass six fascist policies or help a tyrant stage a coup or live in a region that prospers. That’s the thing about Gerrymander – while liberals and fascists may fight tooth and nail in the capital – regional allegiances can create strange bedfellows. Liberals may want to pass fascist policies that help their home region, while fascist players may support liberal policies that help their homes as well. Tyrants only win if they stage a coup – whether through a coup card or being in a sufficiently fascist capitol. Oligarchs focus primarily on the prosperity of their home regions, although they can win with several oligarch policies. Oligarchs help regions become more prosperous, which can enhance strange bedfellow relationships. Zealots focus on extremely powerful policies that enable the Action Player to investigate other players’ allegiance. Zealots win if they have a representative in the Capitol when certain policies pass. Separatists win if certain policies pass when they are a majority of players in a region are separatists and a specific policy passes.

As you can imagine, Gerrymander has a lot of moving parts. You are some of those moving parts. Literally. Players elected to the capital literally go to a different room to pass policies. When the elected players reemerge from the capital, more often than not, the action player will be moving players from one region to another. These shifting tides can change a faction’s political fortunes in an instant.

You might notice two tokens in every region. One is to keep score on the region’s scoring track. (point to the boxes labeled -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4.) Sometimes regions score points. If a region achieves four prosperity points, then some players may win. At the start of the game, all regions start at 0.

The other token is a tiebreaker. Whomever receives the second highest number of votes in an election takes the tiebreaker token. This person can break ties on regional votes until the next election.

Sometimes, players in a region just won’t get along. If all other regions have players in the capital, then those players may start a one-minute clock. If regions are unable to come to an agreement, then follow the rules in the capital for two – or one! – representative.