Capetown

Capetown will be running at the 2009 Hide&Seek Weekender.
It starts at 7:00pm on Friday the 31st of July. Find out more.

A social game of secret superhero identities. Players choose to aid, disrupt or ignore a series of crimes and disasters that unfold in the bustling metropolis, unmasking one another's true identities in the process.

Setup

Prepare one slip of paper per player; write "GOOD" in small letters on half of them (rounding up) and "EVIL" on the others. Hand them out, telling players that this is their character's aim in life, which must remain secret.

Ask the players to come up with a superhero or supervillain name; preferably something original, to avoid the risk of duplicates. They should privately write this name on their slip, and pass it back to you. Keep track of the order these get passed back - you need to write a list of these names in the same order that they go around the table (also noting whether they're good or evil), so that you know who's who.

Basic gameplay

At the start of each round, the narrator announces that a crime or disaster is taking place, such as a bank heist, a prison break, an earthquake. Heroes and Villains can choose to rush to the scene, either to save the day, or to make things worse.

One way to keep track of scoring, although this might be overcomplicating it.

The players close their eyes. The moderator asks for anyone who wants to attend the scene to raise their hand (or put their hand on the table, or step forward, or something like that); the super-identities of these players are noted down by the narrator (if you've written them as a list, then put ticks or crosses next to their names for each round, according to their hero/villain nature). The moderator then asks if anyone else is out on patrol today (but not at the scene of the crime or disaster), and for them to raise their hands. These attendees aren't noted.

Players are then told to open their eyes, keeping their hands in the air. The narrator announces the list of superheroes and supervillains who attended the event, and the end result - if there were more heroes than villains, then the day is saved (and the heroes gain 1 point); if it was tied or there were more villains than heroes, then the crime or disaster was unhindered (and the villains gain 1 point). (eg. "Mantisman and Plastiqueman rushed to the volcano edge, and fought off Doctor Cuttlefish to save the school bus. Heroes score a point!")

Players are then able to look around and see who may have been in attendance at the event; anyone with their hand in the air is either one of the heroes or villains who was just named, or just happened to have been on patrol elsewhere in the city today.

The game continues over a pre-determined number of events (nine?). Whichever team has the highest score at the end is the winner.

Unmasking

If a player thinks they've worked out the secret identity of another hero or villain (perhaps they've noticed that whenever Mantisman saves the day, Bob has his hand up), they can make an accusation at the end of a round, by naming the player and their suspected identity. (Typically heroes will try to unmask villains, and vice versa.)

If the narrator confirms that the accusation is correct, then the accused player is eliminated from the game and may no longer assist or hinder events. If the accusation is wrong, then the narrator reveals the accuser's team (although not the accuser's identity), and that team loses a point.

Card variant

This was a suggested variant that emerged from playtesting, and which may serve better as a final form for the game:-

Pick names for heroes and villains in advance, and pre-prepare a number of cards for each player - three that say "[Name] saves the day!" (or "[Name] causes chaos!"), and three that say "[Name] is on patrol." (You could leave the names blank and ask players to write their names in; just make sure that the cards say whether the character is good or evil, and maybe add a number to the corner so you can resolve any confusion or cheating if someone tries to write more than one name across their cards.)

At the start of the game, give each player a hand of six cards for their character and have them stand in a group on one side of the room. Whenever a disaster is announced, anyone who wants to fight, help or patrol elsewhere should don their mask, approach the moderator and hand them a card. After having done so, they go to stand in a separate area of the room, so that you have a clear group of involved or patrolling heroes, in masks. When nobody else wants to join that group, the moderator reads out the results of the handed-in cards, and - after a little discussion and suspicion - the masked group head back to join the others.

The main mechanical difference here is that players never close their eyes - this changes the decision about whether to attend the disaster (because you can see whether anyone else is bothering), and gives the "patrol" option significantly more power. Hopefully both of these will make for a more tactical and social game.

Given that this variant weakens unmasking (if a player can only attend three disasters, they probably won't be eliminated before the third anyway), a successful unmasking earns the unmasker's team (or, more accurately, the team the target doesn't belong to) a point.