Designed by Bruno Faidutti.

Get money, use it to invest in real estate, and dodge hit men. No, this is not the New York mob scene, but a game called Citadels.

Interesting Mechanic: Action Roles. At the start of each round, players will draft one out of several possible roles. Then, each role is resolved in order based on the speed of the role. Each role has strong powers that interact with the board – the Assassin can kill another role, for example, which prevents that role from actually taking his or her turn (note that the player controlling the Assassin has no idea who has that role, and in fact, it may be that no one does!). The Warlord can destroy another player’s buildings. The thief can steal gold. So on and so forth.

After the action is taken, players then take their actual church, taking money, building buildings, or putting new possible buildings in their hands to be built later. The game ends when one person builds 8 districts.

Citadels is in a lot of collections because it is a simple game that seats 8 players. It can be a lot of fun, but it can also drag a little, if your game has too many directly offensive roles.

(Photo Credit: Board Game Geek)