In Poison, also available over the years as Friday the 13th and Baker's Dozen, players try to avoid overflowing cauldrons in the middle of the table, which means you take the cards from the central playing area. The more you take, the worse your score — unless you manage to take the most of one suit, in which case you get to throw those cards away!
In a round, each player gets a hand of cards, with the cards coming in three suits that have values from 1 to 7 and a fourth "joker" suit in which all the cards have a value of 4. On a turn, a player discards a card from her hand onto a pile of the appropriate color (with jokers being playable on any pile) and gives the sum of all cards now in that pile. If the sum is higher than 13, then the player must first take all of the cards already in the pile, leaving only her card behind.
The round ends once all the cards have been played, then players compare how many cards they have in each of the three suits; whoever has the most cards throws them away, while everyone else scores 1 penalty point per card. Each joker is worth 2 penalty points. Whoever has the fewest penalty points after each player has started a round once wins!
- Unique gameplay
- Clever scoring mechanism
- Beautiful artwork
- Newer version may differ from original
- Potion mixing
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Trick taking — Unique trick-taking mechanism with multiple scoring strategies
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- We're playing games all the time we're playing new ones we're going back to old ones
- I'm hoping that with this list maybe you'll find some games that you can take back to your family
References (from this video)
- easy to learn
- fun party game dynamics
- may rely on luck
- thematic variations can vary in quality
- Hand management and potions
- Cauldron potluck of poisons
- Light, chaotic
- Love Letter
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- hand_management — Manage cards to avoid poisoning others while minimizing your own poison load
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Make this world a better place, one board gamer at a time.
- it's a big hit for our group
- it's all about money
- this is deluxe and exciting