Plotters, Inc.

• Designer: Klaus Plaesch
• Publisher: playte
• Players: 4-6
• Age: 14+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher
• Preorder link: preorder.playte.com

Plotters, Inc., first released as Mit List und Tücke (“With Cunning and Treachery”), is a trick-taking game with quite a few twists.  Everyone has a plan, but those plans often collide in a web of betrayal and schemes.  In this unique trick taking game, you never win a trick alone; the players with the best and worst cards always split it.

The deck consists of cards in four suits, and the deck is adjusted based on the player count so that everyone receives a hand of 14 cards to begin a round. At the start of a trick, the lead player plays any card, setting trump for that trick. Each other player plays any card that they like — except that once three colors of cards have been played, the fourth color cannot be played. Whoever plays the highest trump card wins the trick and collects two of the cards played (or three cards in a game with five or six players), placing these cards in front of them. Whoever plays the lowest non-trump card collects the remaining cards; this player leads to the next trick.

Once a player has cards of all four colors in front of them, they must choose two colors and leave cards of this color face up, placing all other cards face down. As they collect more cards, they place them face up or face down based on their colors. The round ends after 14 tricks or when a player would be forced to play a card of the fourth color to a trick; in this latter case, the round ends immediately. 

Each player then scores the cards they’ve collected. For their two face-up colors, they multiply these numbers together; they then divide this product by the number of cards that they placed face down, rounding this number down. For example, if you have 6 yellow cards, 4 red cards, and 2 blue cards, then you have (6 • 4)/2 = 12 points. If you collect cards of only one color, then you score 0 points! Play as many rounds as the number of players. Whoever has the highest total score wins!

So, this is one of my old go-to trick taking games, especially at high player count.  There aren’t many games in my collection where the minimum player count is 4!  I have always enjoyed this game as it’s so tricky to figure out what to play.  Players can usually salvage things when they win a trick, but man, when you play the lowest card… you’ll usually end up with a mish mash of cards, guaranteeing that you are taking negative points.  You do get one free “bad” card, as that first bad card makes your divisor = 1.  Of course, you score nothing if you take only one color, so you’re motivated to take at least a second color fairly early on, and then you’re at risk of having “bad” cards.

Getting in the middle of the trick is perfect most of the time; you are not at risk of taking any cards and, if you can, you can poison the trick with a color that someone else doesn’t want.  If you are playing cards closer to the end of a trick, you’ll have a bit of an advantage as you will be able to better see what cards you might be forced to take (whether you are high or low).  As player’s goal colors remain face up through the entire hand, it’s always easy to see what different players are going for.

If there’s any quibble I have with the game, it’s the rule of playing a number of rounds equal to the number of players.  When you play with 6 people, phew, this game maybe outstays its welcome a bit.  I’ve got no issue using a long standing house rule of 4 rounds.  Sure, some players end up not being the initial lead player in a round, but that seems to not really be an issue.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! 
• I like it. Dale Y
• Neutral.
• Not for me…

• Preorder link: preorder.playte.com