Round after round of keeping a straight face.
Everyone is secretly paired up. You earn gold together in teams that reshuffle every round, and every move that helps your partner is something the room can notice.
“I'm just concentrating on the game. Who's my partner? No idea.”
At night, everybody's watching.
Each player makes one secret move in the dark, and only the people involved learn anything about it. Hover the crowd to see who's out there.
Pickpocket
Take 20% of someone's gold. Robbing your own partner costs the pair nothing and makes a great alibi.
Guard
Stay up and keep watch. Thieves are stopped, and you learn the name of anyone who came for you.
Case
Find out exactly how much gold someone has. They won't know, unless they were on guard.
Shadow
Follow someone through the souk and see what they did, and to whom. They won't know, unless they were on guard.
Then the Muhtasib gets out the scales.
The Muhtasib was Baghdad's real market inspector, the one who caught short weights and crooked deals. At the end, every player secretly names the pairs they suspect, and each pair's gold goes on the scale.
Your pair is holding 2,400 dinars. 5 accusers is a majority.
Got away clean.
Nobody suspected a thing. You keep all 2,400.
Come try to keep a straight face.
- 6 to 12 players
- About 45 minutes
- Phones plus one shared screen
- Nobody is eliminated