Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

In this weeks segment, we visited a new coffee shop for the blog known as Quills Coffee located in downtown Indianapolis off of West 9th St.  For those of you who are coming out to Gen Con again this year, it’s only 1.5 miles away from the convention center so if you’re wanting some great coffee, it’s either a 5 minute drive or a 20 minute walk away.  It has a clean, open, and modern interior with a friendly and relaxed atmosphere.  I purchased the Vanilla Bourbon Iced Latte which carried a pleasantly balanced, semi-sweet flavor of vanilla and coffee fused together.  Claire had the Blacksmith Cream Soda which was nicely acidic, yet creamy and refreshing.  Both of which were perfect for a 90’ degree day.  We were very pleased with our overall experience and look forward to coming back again.  Today we played the 2 - 5 player set-collection, bluffing, take that, card game known as Scoundrel Society made by Action Phase Games.  Read on to learn more.

The seasonal soirees of the carefree rich are being put on once again, and it’s time for The Society to play their dirty hands at whatever angle will help them steal the most loot from these arrogant and greedy snobs. The mark has been selected and Constable Cramphorn is hot on your trail. In Scoundrel Society you take on the role as one of the societal con-artists wanting to show off your craft by proving who can attain the most loot without getting caught. Loot is gathered by playing one of 5 action cards per turn, some of which will result in multiple or altered actions based on what the players put down simultaneously. At the beginning of the game, each player is provided a character/role card that gives them a unique grift and knack ability. Your character card will assist you throughout the game as you play certain action cards. Turns are brief and have 4 parts: Refill the row, Choose actions, Reveal and resolve actions and Pass the first player marker. This game is unique in that your hand never changes. You keep the 5 actions cards and use them 1 per turn until they are gone, then gather them up and start again, executing them in any order you wish. Each action card has 2 actions and the action taken will depend on how many players reveal that specific card. The loot you steal has a $ value and a suspicion (fingerprint icon) value. Your goal is to have the highest $ value, but keeping your suspicion low. There is a large variety of cards combining different values, abilities and bonuses, so you need to weigh your decisions carefully. At the end of the game, the player with the highest suspicion score is caught by Constable Cramphorn and eliminated from the game. The remaining player with the highest $ total wins!

Have you ever seen the 80’s comedy movie known as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels?  Essentially picture that movie in card game form and you have Scoundrel Society.  The artwork and overall design of the game has been crafted very well.  The illustrations are fun, detailed, and really add to the overall enjoyment of the theme.  This is one of the reasons why it is easily our favorite game that we’ve purchased by Action Phase Games.  It carries enough weight that a more serious gamer would appreciate it, while even gateway gamers could still handle it with ease as long as they have someone to walk them through it.  I do wish the boxes that they release their small games in had inserts inside.  It would have really helped with the storage of the games to have little dividers for the cards and tokens rather than just tossing everything into an empty box.  Other than that, we love this game and we are finding ourselves coming back to it time and time again.  It’s addictive, fun, and flows beautifully with great mechanics.  If you’re a fan of these type of humorous and snobby settings, then you should consider this one.  On average it plays from 30 to 45 minutes and as often as this game see's the table, we'll be holding onto Scoundrel Society for a long time.

Scoundrel Society
Overall Meeple Rating: 7.5/10


Have any thoughts or questions?  Leave a comment below.