Secret Hitler, the best hidden roles game

How to play “Secret Hitler”

Set up

Players

Secret Hitler is a game for 5 to 10 players, ages 17 and up.

What you need to play

Secret Hitler is a commercial game. Below we tell you where to buy it at the best price.

Here are the key players in “Secret Hitler”.

Next, we’ll walk you through how to play, step by step and in detail.

Game elements

Hidden role cards

Secret Hitler is a hidden role game. At the beginning of the game each player will secretly receive a card that assigns him his role.

The game is situated in 1932 Germany, a time in which a group of liberal politicians are trying to govern and enact progressive laws. Several fascists who have infiltrated among them try to boycott these laws while doing their best to get Hitler —also infiltrated— to become Chancellor.

The secret roles are therefore three: liberals, fascists and Hitler.

“LIBERALS” cards

Anyone dealt this card at the start of the game is a LIBERAL.

Illustrations may vary from card to card. The key is that it says LIBERAL.

“FASCISTS” cards

Anyone dealt this card at the start of the game is a FASCIST.

Illustrations may vary. The important thing is that it says FASCIST.

“HITLER” card

Whoever receives this card at the beginning of the game becomes HITLER, the SECRET HITLER. What a role!

Liberals vs. fascists

Players split into two teams: the liberals and the fascists including Hitler.

Membership card

In addition to the card with his hidden role, each player will receive at the beginning of the game a card of affiliation to his party: the liberals will have a card of the liberal party and the fascists and Hitler will have a card of the fascist party.

They look something like this:

Secret Hitler game, liberal party affiliation

Secret Hitler game, fascist party affiliation

Why a party card if the role card already identifies one or the other? Hitler is the culprit. During the course of the game someone may be asked to identify himself as a liberal or fascist and to do so he will show his party membership card. If he shows his role card instead, Hitler’s identity would be revealed — and the game would lose a lot of its fun.

Speaker of Parliament

Secret Hitler is played in rounds. In each round one of the players will be the President of the German Parliament, and will play a very important role in helping his team to win.

The player serving as PRESIDENT must place a sign in front of them on the table to show their role. In the original game, it is a large piece of wood printed like this:

Chancellor

There is a second placard in the game for the Chancellor of Germany. In each round there will be a vote conducted by the Speaker of Parliament in an attempt to elect a Chancellor.

The player holding the position of Chancellor also has the opportunity to help his team in that round.

This is how the labels are displayed during game development

“Secret Hitler! (I was Hitler) #xoxofest ” by Nicole Lee is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Envelopes and ballots

The set includes 10 cards to vote YES and 10 cards to vote NO that look something like this:

Cards of laws

Secret Hitler also includes liberal and progressive law cards that are used as “points” on each team’s scoreboard, and look something like this:

Passing laws brings the team that achieves it closer to victory. We will see how later.

The POLICY CARDS deck has more fascist law cards than liberal law cards. It is not a bug or flaw in the game. Secret Hitler is a very well designed game and both teams have an equal chance of winning the game. You’ll see why later.

Boards / Scoreboard

The set includes three reversible boards. On the one hand, they are blue – the side of the liberals– and on the other red – the side of the fascists-. Why three? Because the board to be used by the fascists depends on the total number of players. Then we see how.

So, depending on the number of players, the fascists will use the red board that corresponds to them and the liberals any of the other two on the blue side (the blue side is identical in all three).

Both boards have positions where the approved laws will be placed, from left to right. Blue board also includes a “track” to keep track of the number of times an attempt has been made to form a government —to elect a Chancellor— and failed.

And now that you know the key elements of the game, you are probably wondering…. How do you play the game? How do you win a game of Secret Hitler? We will tell you more about it below, although of course we will explain it in more detail later.

Goal of the game

How do you win a game of Secret Hitler?

LIBERALS win if they succeed in passing 5 liberal laws or assassinating Hitler.
FASCISTS win if they succeed in passing 6 fascist laws or get Hitler as Chancellor.

“Secret Hitler” rules: playing a game

Preparation

Preparation of envelopes

The first thing to do is to prepare as many envelopes as players, including in them:

Role card (Fascist, liberal or Hitler)
Membership card (liberal party for liberals or fascist party for fascists and Hitler)

How many envelopes for liberals and how many for fascists? Depends on the total number of players.

For 5 players = 3 liberals + 1 fascist + Hitler
For 6 players = 4 liberals + 1 fascist + Hitler
For 7 players = 4 liberals + 2 fascists + Hitler
For 8 players = 5 liberals + 2 fascists + Hitler
For 9 players = 5 liberals + 3 fascists + Hitler
For 10 players = 6 liberals + 3 fascists + Hitler

The fascists are infiltrated among the liberals, so there are fewer of them, but that does not take away their chances of winning the game.

Boards and scoreboards

The fascist board appropriate to the number of players and a liberal board are placed on the table.

Track of failed governments

On the Liberal chessboard, the first position is taken by the failed voting track to appoint the Chancellor.

Deck of laws

The law cards are shuffled and placed in a deck.

“Holiday game time! The game we picked? Secret Hitler, duh. ” by Kevin Lawver is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Assignment of roles

The envelopes are shuffled and each player chooses one at random. Each player opens his envelope, looks at his role and puts the role card back in the envelope. All secretly and with a “poker face”, without giving any clues to the others!

Delivery of cards of vote

Each player also receives one card to vote YES and one card to vote NO.

Fascists know each other

Next, a protocol is followed that allows the fascists to get to know each other and who Hitler is, although Hitler will not know who the liberals or his fascist colleagues are.

Protocol for fascists to get to know each other

One of the players, it doesn’t matter who, will give the following instructions to the whole group, which must have been memorized beforehand. You can also record an audio recording and play it back beforehand!

CLOSE YOUR EYES: All players close their eyes.
STRAIN YOUR ARM WITH CLOSED FIST: all players stretch their arm on the table and keep their fist closed.
FASCISTS, EXCEPT HITLER, OPEN YOUR EYES. Important. Hitler remains with his eyes closed, and so do all liberals. Everyone is still with their arm outstretched.
HITLER, THUMB UP: Hitler raises his thumb. This is maintained for 10 seconds so that all fascists have time to identify Hitler. Hitler remains with his eyes closed.
HITLER, CLOSE YOUR FIST: Hitler puts his thumb down.
FASCISTS, CLOSE YOUR EYES: all players remain with their eyes closed. They hold this status for a few seconds.
TAKE BACK YOUR ARM: players bring their arm back to its normal position.
OPEN YOUR EYES: all players open their eyes.

For 5 or 6 players the protocol changes a bit. Hitler will open his eyes with the fascists but will not be able to indicate with his thumb that it is him.

Silence please!

During this process, no sounds or movements that might reveal identities are allowed. Enjoy this moment of the game because it is very exciting.

How to play a round

Everything is ready! Let’s see now how to play a round

Game Secret Hitler, President of the Parliament label

President Label

The player who is PRESIDENT in the first round places the PRESIDENT placard in front of him, and also takes the CANCILLER placard.

The President proposes a Chancellor

The President proposes a candidate for Chancellor to form a government and gives him the label CANCILLER so that his proposal can be put to a vote.

At the beginning of the game the proposal is totally blind for a president who is liberal, because he has no idea who is who.

A Fascist president might nominate a Fascist Chancellor to their advantage. Or maybe not — they might hold back early on to avoid giving away clues.

That is one of the keys to this game, a well executed bluff can make the difference between winning and losing.

Voting

A vote is then taken to see if that player is accepted as Chancellor. Each player secretly proposes his voting card face down and places it in the center of the table.

Scoring

The PRESIDENT collects all votes, shuffles them without looking at any YES or NO cards, then reveals and counts the results.

If NO wins

The approval of the CANCILLER is thwarted if the number of noes equals or exceeds the number of yeses. The failed government track is moved to the next position.

After three failed governments, the track chip arrives at a marker on the board that tells us what to do next: the first law of the deck of laws is taken and whatever it is, liberal or fascist, that law is automatically approved. The track is reset and returns to the first position.

If YES wins

If YES wins, then we have CANCILLER, and with the government formed the session of passing a law begins.

Passing of a law

The PRESIDENT takes the first THREE cards from the deck of laws, looks at them secretly and discards one of them in a discard pile without the discarded card being seen at any time. He passes the other two to the CANCILLER, unseen.

The CHANCELLOR secretly looks at the two cards passed to him by the PRESIDENT, discards one of them to the discard pile and the remaining card becomes an APPROVED LAW.

This process of discarding cards and passing a law is done in silence, there can be no verbal or non-verbal communication between the PRESIDENT and the CHANCELLOR, and the cards must not be seen at any time.

After the passing of the law there can be a debate about what has just happened, the other players can ask whatever they want -What cards have you discarded? What has the PRESIDENT passed to the CANCILLER?- but both PRESIDENT and CANCILLER are free to answer whatever they want about it, tell the truth or bluff the others always thinking about what is best for their team.

If a liberal law is passed

If the PASSED LAW is liberal it is placed on the liberal board and no more action needs to be taken. The laws are placed from left to right in the following free space.

If a fascist law is passed

If the law passed is fascist, the card is placed on the fascist board and the board itself will tell us if any further action must be taken. What are these actions? We explain them below. They are key in the development of the game.

Special actions proposed on the board

Special Action 1 – Role disclosure

The president of the current round may ask any player to show him his party card. The player selected by the president shall secretly draw his role card from his envelope and pass it to the president with only the party card inside. The president can share that information with others, or not, or lie to others about what he or she has just seen.

Special Action 2 – Finger President

The current president handpicks the next president, skipping the natural rotation. Once this exceptional round is over, the turn returns to the player whose turn it really was.

Special Action 3 – Eliminate a player

The current president must “kill” a player. It is not an optional action, he must do it. He can discuss with the others whom to select but the final decision is made by him. The chosen player will no longer be part of the game, must remain silent for the rest of the game, and cannot reveal his identity unless it is Hitler. If it is Hitler he must say so and the game will be won by the liberals.

Special Action 4 – Veto power

The CURRENT CHANCELLOR, after receiving the two cards from the PRESIDENT, has the option of proposing to veto the round and not pass any law. The veto power is only executed if both agree.