Two of the biggest mistakes you can make playing Secret Hitler
Tips to my favorite board game
Fröhlichen Dienstag!
That’s “happy Tuesday” in German.
Secret Hitler is tied with Balderdash as my favorite game.
If you’ve never played Secret Hitler, all you need to know is it’s like the social deduction game Mafia. Or you could watch this 👇
Raising $1.5 million on Kickstarter, Secret Hitler is a hidden roles game where you’ll learn which of your friends is good at lying. You could also meet your next date, like Sargon.
Oh, and if you’re put off by the title of the game, Secret Hitler has a response on their clever website:
While much of Secret Hitler is reading people and getting lucky, there are a couple of common mistakes you can avoid to stay in the clear.
Allowing past games to influence your present one
If you play more than one game with newer players, a phrase you’ll hear nearly every time is this: “they were fascist last game; they can’t possibly be fascist again.”
But that’s not how odds work.
Here’s my nerdy brother — he majored in math and is a Dungeon Master — explaining the reality behind statistics:
“When it comes to probability, your gut is wrong.”
Shoutout to my Probability professor, Dr. Zhang, for that pertinent zinger.
In a 10 player game of Secret Hitler, your chance of being Hitler is 10%. Every game. Every time. No matter what. And that is because card distribution in Secret Hitler is an independent event, not a dependent event.
Two events, A and B, are said to be independent if the fact that A has occurred does not affect the probability that B will occur. For example, if I flip a coin, the chance that I flip a heads is always 50%, regardless of previous coin flips.
A and B are said to be dependent events if the result of A directly influences the probability that B will occur. For example, if I drive my car today, then the chances that I get a speeding ticket increase. So, me driving on a given day (A) and me getting a speeding ticket on that same day (B) are considered dependent events.
At the start of a game of Secret Hitler, the role cards are shuffled and passed out. The same 10 cards are randomized and distributed randomly. That’s it. Event A (which card I received last round) is independent from Event B (which card I receive this round).
Previous rounds don’t influence this. Where you sit at the table doesn’t influence this. Mars in retrograde doesn’t influence this. Only God can help you now, you Nazi scum.
So the next time Gerald wails, “But I was Hitler last game! There’s no way I could be Hitler again! I mean, what are the odds?”, you better look Gerald straight in his fascist eyes and say, “10%, Gerald, ya cold-blooded lizard.”
Play Secret Hitler with short-term memory. To quote our great modern philosopher, Ted Lasso, “be a goldfish.”*
Hesitating
There are three core areas in life where you should avoid hesitating: driving, playing Secret Hitler, and saying, “I love you too.”
Hesitations prove you’re trying to make a decision.
But if you’re liberal in Secret Hitler, you don’t have any decisions to make. Always play and pass liberal tiles.
You do have to make more difficult decisions when you’re a fascist in Secret Hitler. Nothing reveals that tension more than hesitating.
Here’s a tip: make decisions in your head before you have tiles in your hand.
There are only four possible hands you can draw in Secret Hitler. You should make four decisions in your head before every round.
You can improv discussion, but don’t improv your decisions.
Fröhlichen Dienstag, friends!
✌️
— Luke
P.S. Kendrick and Harry did it again. If you can’t get enough, here are a couple of pieces of content I dig:
📺 How to Take Notes Like Kendrick Lamar
David Perell shares why Kendrick credits constant notetaking to his success. In 7th grade, Kendrick’s teacher encouraged him to write poetry as a way to let out his frustration rather than resort to violence. He hasn’t stopped since.
My fave line: Great writers don’t have the best ideas. They just have practices that help them recognize and store their ideas.
📺 Harry Styles: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert