Office Gossip

Office Gossip is a hidden killer game made by the Invisible City group. It's a more structured version of Mafia/Werewolf. The object of the game is to get the credit for successful projects, without getting sabotaged by the secret scumbag.

Setup

Players	Support (♢ ♡)	No Comment (♣ ♠)	Slander (K,Q,J)	Total Cards
Five	8	14	3	25
Six	15	18	3	36
Seven	18	27	4	49
Eight	28	32	4	64
Nine	32	44	5	81

This game needs at least five players. You will need playing cards.

Each player gets a small hand of management cards. The backs of the cards must be identical, since the cards will be secret. Each hand has one card per player (ie. five players, five cards per stack). Every hand except one will be a "normal" set: half (rounded up) "no comment" cards, half "support" cards. One stack will be the "gossip" set: half (rounded down) "no comment" cards, half "slander" cards.

Make the hands, then have all players but one turn away. The one player will rearrange the hands, then turn away. The remaining players will each pick up a hand, and move the remaining stack. In this way, no player will know what cards the other players have.

Whoever picked up the stack with the slander cards is the office gossip. Players cannot show each other the cards in their hands, but they can say whatever they wish.

Play

Each round has three steps: planning, delegation, evaluation.

Planning: Each player chooses a "support," "no comment" or "slander" card from their hand, and plays it face-down to a pile in the centre of the table. This pile is shuffled, so nobody will know who submitted which card. This pile is the "project," and the cards determine how successful the project will be. A project with more support will be more successful, however a project with slander will be disastrous.

Delgation: Now the players must decide who will be the project lead taking credit. The group must all agree on one player who has not yet had a project. During this phase, you can say, imply, accuse, cajole or whatever, but you may not reveal any cards in your hand or in the project.

Evaluation: Whoever was assigned as project lead takes the shuffled pile, and turns over the cards.

• If there are no slander cards: the project was a success; how successful depends on how many "support" cards were used.
• If there was a slander card: the project was sabotaged; this project lead gets demoted to a position with less responsibility, and may not play cards in the remaining planning stages.
• If the project lead was the office gossip: the game ends. If the office gossip had a successful project, they get a promotion and all the other managers are screwed. If the office gossip sabotaged their own project, they get fired and the other managers can breathe easy. Whichever manager took credit for a successful project with the most "support" cards gets a big fat raise and a mention at the next annual company dinner.