Boardroom Bluff

Objective

A claim-and-challenge bluffing game of corporate intrigue. Each turn, claim a role's power move — collect favors, grant from the pot, sabotage a rival, or exploit faction politics — and everyone else decides whether to call your bluff. Last player standing wins.

How to play

1. Each player secretly holds 2 influence cards and starts with 2 favors (1 in a 2-player game). On your turn, either take a base action (Collect: +1 favor, always legal) or claim any role's power move, whether or not you hold that card.
2. Treasurer claims +3 favors and blocks Grant. Enforcer steals up to 2 favors from a target (blockable by Enforcer or Diplomat). Diplomat draws 2 cards, you keep any mix of your hand and the draw, then return 2 cards (blocks Shakedown). Saboteur pays 3 favors when you declare it; the target loses influence (refunded if your bluff fails). Guardian blocks only Sabotage.
3. Grant: claim +2 favors — no claim needed, blockable by anyone of the opposite faction claiming Treasurer. Showdown: pay 7 favors, target loses an influence immediately. Forced once you hold 10 or more favors.
4. Factions: Management 👔 and Workers 🛠 alternate around the table. While both exist, you can't target your own faction with Showdown, Sabotage or Shakedown, and can't block their Grant. Switch Sides costs 1 favor (self) or 2 favors (target) to the Office Pot. Embezzle claims you hold no Treasurer and takes the whole pot — anyone may challenge.
5. Challenge any role claim: if the claimer reveals the card, the challenger loses an influence; if not, the claimer loses one. Caught bluffers refund costs (Saboteur gets 3 back). Blocked actions fail and costs are not refunded. Losing your last influence eliminates you. The game ends only when one player remains.

Scoring

No running score during play — only the final elimination order matters. The last player standing wins; others score by when they were eliminated, earlier eliminations scoring lower.

Example round

1. Turn 1: Ana claims Treasurer and takes +3 favors. Ben challenges. Ana reveals the card; Ben must discard and draw a replacement.
2. Turn 3: Cleo claims Enforcer and steals 2 favors from Dan. Dan claims Diplomat to block. Cleo challenges the block. Dan can't prove Diplomat; he discards and redraws. Cleo's Enforcer takes effect.
3. Turn 5: Carlos claims Grant for +2 favors. Esther (opposite faction, holding Treasurer) claims Treasurer to block the Grant. Unchallenged, Carlos gets nothing and Esther's claim stands.
4. Turn 8: With 10 favors, Ana is forced to Showdown. She targets Ben for 7 favors — he loses an influence card. Later, Ben claims Saboteur against Cleo; she claims Guardian to block. Ben challenges the block, wins, Cleo discards, and Ben's Sabotage costs him 3 favors.
5. Final: Only Cleo and Dan remain. Cleo wins by lasting longer; Dan is eliminated first and scores lower.

Strategy tips

• Watch the table for tells — players who hold Treasurer tend to play cautiously early; players with Guardian or Diplomat often take bolder risks.
• Bluff your power moves only when the table is paying attention to someone else; a claim on a quiet turn draws suspicion faster than one buried in action.
• Save your challenges for the highest-stakes moves; wasting a challenge on a base Collect action gives away your suspicion that the player is bluffing.
• Block claims sparingly — every block you make reveals that you're holding a specific counter-role, which skilled players will note for later turns.
• Favors are a means to an end, not the end itself: a huge pile of favors with only 1 influence card left is worse than a single influence with no favors.

Best with

Boardroom Bluff shines with 3–6 players, where table reads and grudge matches are tight and memorable. The deck scales with the table — 3 copies of each role up to 6 players, 4 up to 8, 5 up to 10 — so bigger tables get more bluffing material rather than a thinner deck. Head-to-head at 2 players is elegant: players alternate factions, start with 1 favor each and 2 hidden cards, and the dynamics shift dramatically when factions converge to free-for-all. Works equally well for players who love psychological games and for those who just enjoy the corporate satire.

Variations

• Agree to a 'no discussion' rule where players can only communicate through their actions — no table talk lets the silence speak volumes.
• Start in the Auditor variant instead of the default Diplomat deck. Every Diplomat becomes an Auditor, which exchanges one card instead of two, can Audit an opponent to inspect a card of their choice and force a redraw, and blocks Shakedown in the Diplomat's place — a sharper, more aggressive table.
• Track who holds which revealed roles across a multi-round session and award a bonus to whoever successfully predicted the most opponent cards.
• Run a second match with factions reset and a different starting seat. The first seat's faction is drawn at random, so the same lineup can split Management and Workers differently each time — worth a rematch once players have read each other.

FAQ