Students Blog

played by Glenn, Matt, Nick

Formal Elements

Illuminati is a card game played by 2-8 people, although for 2, 3, or 8 people the game probably isn't too fun, but I'll get more into that later. The game set includes eight different Illuminati groups (black cards), 110 factional groups, and a ton of money chits.

At the beginning of the game each player picks an Illumjinati card from a shuffled deck. This becomes the base of their power structure that they will develop through the game's progression. Each Illuminati card has a special power, a certain number of power points, and a certain amount of income they draw in per player turn.

In the middle, between all of the players, lies the deck of factional groups with the first four turned up. These are the "uncontrolled" groups. Each of these cards represents a faction that the Illuminti (players) can try to control. They include such groups as the "Democrats," "Television Preachers," or the "Semiconscious Liberitarian Army." Each group has a power level which is used when attacking another group; there is also a transferable power level which a group can use to aid another group in an attack. Each group has a resistence level that determines how much defense it has in an attack against it. The card also tells you the alignment of the group -- conservative, liberal, straight, weird, government, communist, criminal, fanatical, etc. Some cards also list special benefits that they may have if they belong in a player's power structure.

The cards also have arrows on the borders -- one of them is pointed inward and up to three other arrows can be pointing outward from the edges of the card. The Illuminati card has four arrows pointing outward -- arrows pointing towards the edges of the card. To these arrows you can attach these group cards via the inward pointing arrow. For the computer scientists in the audience you might think of this as growing a tree structure one where each node of the tree can hold up to three additional nodes.

Caption: This is an example of an Illuminati power structure. The card with the black background is the Illuminati card and the cards surrounding it are the groups that the player controls. The chits represent the amount of money each group has.

At the beginning of a player's turn they'll attack an uncontrolled group. That's done by announcing which group in your power structure you will use to engage the uncontrolled one (on the first move it'll be the Illuminati themselves). To "attack to control" another group you subtract your card's power against the resistence of the other card. You then need to use two die and roll less than or equal to that difference. For example if you have a card attacking with a power of 6 against a card of a resistence of 4, then you need to roll a 2 or less, which means your odds of beating that card is incredlby low. To augment that you can use the income that the card generates, or income from the Illuminati to add more power to your attack. So if you hadd 5 "megabucks" then you can have a total power of 11 and you would need to roll a 7 or less to take the card.

If you try to take another player's card this can become more like a poker match. To increase the resistence of a defending card, the player can throw "megabucks" at it to keep the odds low that you can take it over. Aside from using money there's also the ability to use the power structure itself to aid in resisting an attack -- closer you are to the Illuminti core the more resistence. A third player can also interfer with the attack and aid either side (and I'm sure if there are more players they can do the same).

Attacking to control, destroy, or neutralize is the core means of controlling groups and the big action that players take throughout the game. There are also other actions such as transferring money through the power structure or reorganizing the power structure -- to make more room for new groups to be latched into the structure. Each player gets two actions per turn so they can attack twice (not with the same card), or do some other actions. There are also free actions that can be taken such as passing money to a new group acquisition or trying to trade with another player.

The instructions for the game also leave a lot more to the players. The power structure kinda is just a means in which the players engage one another inside of this magic circle, but the meat and fun of the game, I think, is in the actual back stabbing and alliance making that emerges from the play. There are even advanced rules on cheating where anything goes, except knocking over the table.

To win the game there are two means: The first is to control as many groups as possible. For a 3 player game that's 12-13 groups, for a 5 player game that would be less. There are also special goals for each Illuminati. For instance the Gnomes of Zurich seek to control wealth, so if that player has 150 megabucks then they can claim victory. The Bravarians seek to have a total of 35 power points throughout it's power structure; the TV Networks want a high level of tranferrable power; and the Discordian Society wants to control 5 weird-aligned groups. Then there is the UFO Illuminati which have a secret goal that can be choose from one of the other 7 groups (they don't have to tell the other players).

Dramatic Elements

The dramatic elements focus around the paranoid idea that there are conspiracies at work in the world and secret brotherhoods (Illuminati) who are ultimately controlling everything. The game takes this idea and satirizes it with bizarre and real groups that the player can control and try and take over the world. Half of the fun of the game is just saying things like: "I want to use the Federal Reserve with power from the Men in Black to attack the Televsion Preachers..."

Thoughts

I really like the idea of the Illuminati as a game since I've always enjoyed conspiracy mythologies (i.e. X-Files, Da Vinci Code). I like the idea of building the power structure and the configurability of it, even though during play we didn't really get to do much breaking and adding of branches to our power struct. I like that there was a lot of player interaction in the game. The majority of what happens comes down to player choices: who to ally with, where to move money, what to attack and how much money and power to put behind that attack, where to place pieces in the power structure, etc. I also like that the game designers took into account that the players could do more outside of the rules of the game to cheat one another. It gives the game a sense that it's a huge open system That aside there are also a huge number of rules to keep in mind when playing the game, and while we played we kept vocalizing everything, the mathematics in each attack, and trying to remind ourselves what we could and couldn't do. Luckily the designers also includes a cheat sheet on the back with all the rules laid out concisely. It was incredibly helpful.

Play Experience

When we played there were 3 of us so I imagine our game wasn't as fun since there weren't many ways in which we could form alliances or backstab one another. The biggest move in the game was my attempt to take over Matt's "Federal Reserve" group. We kept adding megabucks to attack and defend one another, but in the end the Nick threw in his money on my favor and I ended up taking the Federal Reserve card.

We didn't get into any of the trading or big time backstabbing or rearranging of power structures like the game promises, but we'd also like to play it again with more people -- if we can find the time. I would certain like to play it again.

The game ended when Nick had over 150 megabucks. He played as the Gnomes of Zurich. We were too busy trying to take over groups, meeting our own secret goals, and I think even being to conservative that we eventually let him get away with amassing a ton of money. I played as the Discordian Society and at the beginning of the game we happened to have a huge string of "weird" algined groups. I managed to grab three and Nick took the fourth in the string of cards. I had thought of attacking his power structure for the card, but seeing how it was the "psychologists" card and that they didn't offer much in power or the abiliity to build off of them it didn't seem like a good idea. I knew that if I threw any money into it, Nick could throw a ton of money to resist. Even if I managed to win against him I think the attack would have absorbed all of my money leaving me more defenseless and prone to attacks.