Staked! - How to Play Board Game. 🧛👻A Social Deduction Game where you play till the end of the game

Vampires get rid of all the hunters. Vampire hunters get rid of all the vampires without being turned into their loyal followers, in state. And today we'll be teaching you how to play Staked, game designed by Will Demambres. And hello everyone, it's Stella. And Tarrant here from Melbourne University.

All right, let's get to the classroom. Staked is a social deduction game in which six to 10 players play the roles of vampire hunters at the annual hunters guild meeting. However, the hunters have come to learn that there are vampires secretly hiding in their midst. And now over several rounds of play, players will discuss and cast votes to determine who gets the power and who gets the stake.

It's a team versus team battle between the hunters and the vampires, and whichever can eliminate the other first will be the winner. To set up, each player chooses a character taking its coffin shaped seat at the table and its character card. The card has some thematic biography on it, but all the characters play the same.

There's no difference between them. And so the main reason for having this card is to remind you which of the 10 numbers represents you as a player. For the purposes of this video, I'm going to use these character cards to represent the actual players. For example, at times during the game some players will get up and move around the room, and I'm going to use these cards to represent that physical movement.

Players take the three voting tokens matching their player numbers. Each player's tokens will be two stakes and one feast. Take the specific combination of secret role cards for your player count. At six players, that's four hunters, a vampire, and the vampire lord. Seven players is five hunters, a vampire, and vampire lord.

Eight players is five hunters, two vampires, and the vampire lord. Nine players is six hunters, two vampires, and the vampire lord. And 10 players is seven hunters, two vampires, and the vampire lord. Shuffle up all of the roles and deal one face down to each player. You must look at your own role card.

You may say whatever you want about that card, but unless otherwise stated, you may never show it to another player until the game is over. Shuffle and place the deck of last will cards in the center of the table along with the 3-minute hourglass. Nearby for later use, keep the alpha tile, the three alpha voting tiles, and a ghost dial for each player.

For your first game, leave all the remaining components in the box. These are used for the sacred relics module, which I'll talk about at the end of the video. This includes the cards, the relic board and tokens, and the player aids. As the final step of setup to begin the game, you'll undergo a night phase.

There are more hunters than vampires, but the vampires will have the benefit of knowing who the other vampires are, and that's what this phase achieves. Have any one player narrate the following steps. First, all players close their eyes. Then the next step depends on your player count. In a seven or 10 player game, have the vampires and the vampire lord open their eyes.

Then have the vampire lord wiggle their eyebrows. Now all players on the vampire team know all of the information about players' roles. Now have the vampires close their eyes again. In the six, eight, or nine player game, have the vampires open their eyes, but not the vampire lord. Once again, have the vampire lord wiggle their eyebrows, but this time doing it with their eyes closed.

Now the normal vampires have full information, but the vampire lord does not. Again, have the vampires close their eyes. Finally, invite all players to open their eyes. You're now ready to play. Staked is played in rounds, each broken into two phases. First, the mingling phase, then the dining phase.

In the mingling phase, players will discuss among themselves who they think the vampires are, and will cast their three voting tokens for opponents around the table. In the dining phase, the votes are revealed and the outcomes resolved. What I'll do is take you through the game's rounds one at a time because new and different rules will be introduced in the first round, second round, and third round before all subsequent rounds play like the third.

In this way, I'll be stepping you through how a game of Staked plays out. The first step of round one is the mingling phase. A mingling phase takes place over 3 minutes, so flip the 3-minute hourglass to set the timer for this phase. Players now discuss who they think are the vampires and who they wish to vote for.

You can say and discuss whatever you wish as long as you don't show your role cards. Throughout the phase, you must cast your three votes. Remember, you have two stakes and one feast, and you must cast each of them face down to a different player who is not yourself. You can do this however you want.

You can cast all of your votes early or you can hold back and wait to see what other players do before you put your votes down. However, you'll want to make sure you do get all of your votes cast since the phase ends immediately when the hourglass runs out, and any votes left uncast will count against you.

Now move to the dining phase and reveal all voting tokens. First, count up each player's stake tokens, and any vote that you failed to cast during the round, whether it's a feast or a stake, counts as a stake against you. The single player with the most stakes, in this case it's player four because of the penalty from this uncast vote, now gets investigated.

This is not too bad. Normally, having the most stake votes is going to result in death, but for this first round it doesn't. You're just investigated. That player must give their secret role card face down to another player of their choice who gets to look at it secretly and then return it to the original player.

This puts some extra information into the game after round one. Then the single player who scored the most feast votes has been elected the alpha hunter for the next round. Give that player the alpha hunter tile, covering that player's seat at the table temporarily for the next round. You'll also give that player the three alpha hunter voting tokens.

The alpha will vote with those instead of with their normal voting tokens during the subsequent round. If there's a tie for either the stake vote or the feast vote, here for example, three players received four stakes, then give each player a ghost dial, and without further conversation, players will simultaneously vote among the tied players with the majority breaking the tie.

If it's still a tie, then it remains unresolved and you move on to the next step without resolving what you were voting for. All players now retrieve their voting tokens, setting the alphas temporarily aside, and you'll move on to the second round's mingling phase. There's no real change to how the mingling phase plays out.

You've still got 3 minutes to discuss among yourselves and cast your votes. Again, casting them always for different opponents, and casting them face down. All that's changed is which tokens the alpha is using to cast votes. The alpha hunter doesn't cast two stakes and a feast. The alpha hunter's votes are an investigation, a feast, and a double stake.

The first thing you'll resolve in the dining phase is the investigation. Whoever is investigated must show face down their secret role card to the alpha hunter. Gaining this information is a key benefit for being the alpha. Next, resolve the staking. Once again, you will count up which single player has the most stake votes, remembering that the alpha's token counts as two stakes.

In this case, player four has been chosen, and whether they were vampire or hunter, they're now about to be killed by all the other players. The killed player flips and resolves the top card from the last will deck. This is generally a final vengeful effect which you'll either resolve immediately or which will impact the next round.

Now flip over the player's seat tile to indicate their death, and give the player a ghost voting dial. That player's voting tokens remain in play for the rest of this dining phase, but you'll be able to set them aside at the end of the round. They won't be used again. Once we reach this point, we've now got players who can be in multiple states.

They can be vampires or hunters, and they can be living or ghosts. Ghost players are still very much in the game, and they can still win or lose the game based on how their team, the hunters or vampires, finish up. And the ghosts will continue to play a significant but different role in how the game unfolds.

Having resolved the staking, you now move on to resolving the next alpha vote. As before, it's the single living player who has the most feast votes who becomes the new alpha. The same player cannot be elected alpha in consecutive rounds, nor can a player who has been killed. Go to whoever has the second most votes if either such player wins.

Now that there's at least one ghost player in the game, the rules for breaking ties change. Anytime there's a tie for any vote, it's the ghost players and only the ghost players who simultaneously use their dials to cast votes to break that tie. Later on, when there are multiple ghosts, if there's a tie among the ghost votes, then it's the single player who most recently became a ghost who has the casting vote.

Having completed the alpha election, give the alpha tile to the new alpha. Give all living players their voting tokens back, with the alphas set aside and the ghosts returned to the box, and you'll now proceed to the third round. The third round is the first full round. All of the game's rules are now on display.

The first thing you'll do is prior to the beginning of the mingling phase, all of the ghosts will stand up, leave the game table, and go over to an area of their own. Now, in round three, that's probably only going to be one lonely ghost, but in later rounds, the party of ghosts will grow. Now start the mingling phase.

For the living players, nothing changes. They'll still discuss and they'll still be casting votes for other living players. Meanwhile, off to the side, the ghosts will be having their own discussion. Like the living players, they can discuss what they've seen and who they think the vampires are. At some point during the mingling phase, each of the ghosts must secretly choose one of the living players to vote for to try to protect them from the votes this round.

After voting, the ghosts cannot show their votes to any other ghost or living player until those votes are counted. Once the ghosts have chosen, they may return to the main table to participate in the rest of the mingling phase. Ghosts at the main table are not allowed to change the votes they've selected on the dial, however, they can freely get involved in conversation at the table and listen in to learn what the other players know.

As usual, once time is out or all votes are cast, you'll proceed to the dining phase. Now that there's ghosts, the first step of the dining phase is to reveal the ghostly intervention votes and determine which living player has the majority. That player is excluded from all votes for this round. If there's a tie, the newest ghost gets the casting vote, and the ghosts cannot protect the same living player in consecutive rounds.

Now resolve the rest of the dining phase the same way as you normally would, ignoring any votes on the protected player. Therefore, if that player has the alpha's investigation token, no one gets investigated. If that player has the most stakes, then go to the player with the second most stakes. And if that player had the most feasts, go to the player with the second most feasts.

There is one more thing which the vampire hunters need to watch out for, and that is the vampire lord's ability to mesmerize hunters. If at any point a hunter investigates or otherwise gets to look at the vampire lord's role card, then that hunter who investigated is mesmerized by the vampire lord. That player now switches teams.

They are still considered a hunter, they haven't been turned into a vampire, but now they are loyal to the vampires. They want the vampires to win and they win the game if the vampires win. Being mesmerized is permanent, even if either the vampire lord or you are staked. There is no card, token, or memory aid to remind you that you have been mesmerized.

You must simply be aware of this rule, be aware when you've been mesmerized, and if you're one of the vampires, you will know who the vampire lord was, so you'll also be able to keep a mental note of the player who was mesmerized. The mesmerized player will not want to reveal that they've been mesmerized because that would reveal who the vampire lord is and therefore be detrimental to their newly assumed team.

Fundamentally, the aim of the game is to kill as many of the players from the opposing team as you can. If at the end of a round all vampires have been turned into ghosts, then the hunter team wins. If on the other hand, at the end of a round only one hunter player remains alive, then the game is over and the vampire team wins.

In both cases, it's the player in the vampire roles who need to announce that the end of the game has been reached as they're the only ones with complete information. Be clear that a mesmerized hunter is still considered a hunter for these end game conditions. In this case, if hunter seven were mesmerized, there would only be one player left on the hunter team, but there's still two hunters alive, so the game continues.

If at the start of a round there are only three living players remaining, then you'll play a special final decisive round. In this round, there is no alpha hunter regardless of the previous round's election. The ghosts do not leave the table and they don't cast ghostly intervention votes, and each living player returns one of their stake tokens to the box.

They'll each cast only two votes, a feast and a stake. If one player is staked, they are killed without last will, and a winning team is declared. If the living players' votes are tied, it's the ghosts who will cast the final tie-breaking vote. All players on the winning team, whether living or dead, share in the victory.

Once you're familiar with the standard game, you can introduce the sacred relics module. Play the first round as normal, and then the first alpha shuffles up the sacred relic cards and deals one to each player. Players should look at and understand their sacred relic cards before sliding them underneath their seating tiles.

There's also a player aid which explains how every sacred relic works, and some which come with their own special tokens. There are three types of sacred relic, passive, pre-mingling, and post-mingling. The abilities on a passive sacred relic are always in effect as long as the player who holds it is living.

Pre- and post-mingling relics may be used once per round in the appropriate phase and order. The order of activation is shown by the number on the bottom of the card and on the sacred relic board using the 30-second timer. Prior to mingling and prior to ghosts leaving the table, you'll use this timer, first giving the holder of the ritual bell 30 seconds to resolve their relic, then giving 30 seconds to the holder of the signet ring, then 30 seconds to the holder of the hindsight looking glass, and then you'll send the ghosts away and start the 3-minute mingling phase.

Once mingling is complete, you'll go through the same process to resolve the five post-mingling relics in this order, and these are effects which tend to shift and move the votes around. Once you've become a ghost, you're no longer allowed to use the effect of your sacred relic, but do hold onto the card as there are some other effects which may refer to it.

If you reach a final decisive round with only three living players, sacred relic powers can no longer be resolved. And that's how to play Staked. We are using a prototype copy of the game, so the rules and components may not be final, and do check out the project page for the game. We'll put a link to that in the description below.

And thanks so much for watching. Your like and comments are much appreciated. Subscribe to see what's coming and have a great day. See you next time.