The Resistance: Avalon (also known as Avalon) is a game of deception, deduction, and secret identities. Every player will be given a player card to determine which ‘side’ they are on, with their goal being to win three out of five rounds of the game by passing or failing missions.

The rules for this game are somewhat difficult to summarize.​

If you are on the ‘Good’ side, you will be trying to pass missions and figure out who the ‘evil’ players are along the way.

If you are on the ‘Evil’ side, you will be trying to fail the missions and figure out who Merlin is along the way.

Blue is the 'Good' team symbol and Red is the 'Evil' team symbol.

We will base these simplified rules for Avalon on a 6 player game for ease of explanation (and will mention the variances along the way). We will also leave out all special role cards, but have an explanation of their ‘powers’ at the end.

How To Set Up Avalon

Based on the number of players you have, you will find the corresponding game board (see picture below).

You will set aside the number of “Minions of Mordred” (aka Evil players) as specified on the game board in the bottom right corner.

You will also set aside Merlin, and 3 other “Loyal Servants of Arthur” (aka Good players).

Before dealing the cards out, you should find a starting player and give them the Leader Token. The player cards are shuffled and dealt to each player, who then looks at it and keeps their role secret!

How To Get Started

Once everyone has their role memorized, you can start into the ‘Script’. The ‘Script’ is simply the dialogue you follow to help get things under way. In its most basic form it translates to the following:

All players close their eyes with their hands in a fist in front of them. The Evil players open their eyes and look at each other (so they know who is on their team). Then they close their eyes. The Evil players now put their thumbs up and Merlin opens his eyes to see who is Evil. Merlin closes his eyes (everyone’s eyes closed at this point), and everyone puts their thumbs down… Finally, everyone opens their eyes.

If you haven’t already done so, each player should be given one Approve Token and one Reject Token (see picture below), which are kept face down in front of them.

Game Play For Avalon

The Leader will pick players to go on the first ‘mission’ by handing them a Shield Token (see below). Again the number of people on the ‘missions’ will vary based on the number of people involved.

Now that the Leader has chosen people, everyone must vote on whether they want the chosen people to go on the ‘mission’. You cast your vote by picking either Approve/Reject and flipping over your vote (some people shuffle them and keep it secret) to reveal what everyone chose. This is where you have 2 different paths…

1. If it is rejected (tied vote or more rejects than approves). You increase the vote track to the next number, you also move the Leader Token to the next person, and then you start the process again (I.e. at Game Play above). Note: If you get 5 rejected votes in a row, Evil wins that round!
2. If the vote passes/is approved, you will hand out one Success Card and one Fail Card to each person on the mission.

Now, people that are on the ‘mission’ will secretly decide to either pass it (succeed card) or fail it (fail card). They will hand in their decision to the leader (face down), the Leader will shuffle them and then reveal if it passed or failed!

Note: Good players MUST succeed/pass a mission, whereas Evil players can choose to succeed or fail the mission.

If there is ONE fail in all of the votes, the mission fails (with the exception of the 4^th round in games with 7+ people, these need 2 fails).

If the ‘mission’ succeeds, the good guys get a blue token on the game board for the round, if the mission fails, the Evil guys get a red token for the round.

This ends the round. You will then move the Leader Token and start the next round (in this article from Game Play above).

You continue on like this until one side has won 3 out of 5 rounds.

If the ‘Good’ side ends up winning, the evil have one last shot to Assassinate Merlin and win the game!

Other Roles

To help keep the balance in the game, if one side is winning too much, you can add in one or more of the following characters to balance things out. To simplify it, we summarized what they can do, and which side they help. Percival is the only Good character, the rest are Evil.

Percival: Helps the Good side. He is able to see who Merlin is at the start.

Mordred: Helps the Evil side. He is unknown to Merlin at the start.

Oberon: Helps the Good side. He is unknown to the fellow Evils at the start.

Morgana: Helps the Evil side. She appears as Merlin (to Percival) at the start.

There are some additional rules and game plays available in the Rule Book such as the Lady of the Lake (pictured below) and Targeting.

We have added a video explanation from the guys over at ShutupandSitdown.com to help you out.