Players: 2-10
Time: 30 minutes
Difficulty: 2 (of 10)
This review is of two different products, "Den of Thieves" and "Rival Den of Thieves". Each is the same game with a different set of 26 thieves. They can be played standalone for a 5-player game or together for an up-to-10-player game.
The Components
Each Den of Thieves set comes with 26 thief cards, 1 reference card, and a rule book.
Thief Cards: The cards are regular card size, printed on a sturdy and glossy stock with rounded corners. Each card features a name, a piece of fair grayscale artwork, and the rules for how that particular thief works. Though printed in full-color, the cards are almost entirely monochromatic. As already mentioned, the artwork is grayscale, while the background of the cards is a blue gradient.
Each card is entirely unique and has a special power when it's used. Unfortunately this ends up being the game's main weakness, because the special powers aren't presented in a way that makes them easy to use; instead the majority of time in any game is spent reading and rereading special effects to figure out what they'd do. (This would be alleviated through a lot of repeated play, but I'm not sure that's likely for a light filler game.)
Here's the main reasons that I think the text on the cards ends up making them somewhat frustrating to play:
First, the actual text is slightly hard to read because the letters are lightly printed and fading into the background. This is a pure aesthetic issue, and not a major one.
Second, some of the cards make reference to certain phases of the game, such as "If the targeted card becomes active later in stage three ..." This is much more prevalent in the rules proper than on the cards where it just appears in a few places. In any case, just naming the phases ("later in the Action Phase ...") would have been clearer.
Third, and most importantly, the rules text is just too extensive. Each player is going to be juggling four cards at a time, and what those cards are gradually changes during the game. To have big chunks of text on each card makes it hard to keep everything straight. Here's an example of one of the lengthier card texts:
The Assassin. Target a specific card by name. If that card has already been played as an active card, pay 2 coins (the assassin's wages) to the bank, and the card is discarded. Otherwise pay 1 coin to the bank--as soon as that card is visible as an active card, the card is discarded and can take no action. If the targeted card is not made active this turn, the target is safe.
The game could have benefitted immensely from first a simplification of the card rules, then from use of good icons to cover most of the standard rules situations. Here's, for example, how I would have written the assassin. I've marked things that would probably be iconified by brackets:
The Assassin. Choose one action:
[Spend 2 gold]: [Discard] [visible thief].
[Spend 1 gold]: Name a thief. [Discard] if he becomes [visible thief].
As it is, however, the lengthy text slows down the game.
Reference Card: The reference card lists the six phases of the game on one side and has a listing of the 26 thieves on the others. Like the thief cards, the black text is grayed out a bit and thus slightly hard to read (especially the italics). However, it's a very useful card, and I wish each player had a copy.
Rulebook: The rulebook is a tiny little 8-page affair printed on a single folded sheet of paper in black and white. I unfortunately found it confusing and a bit hard to read. The aforementioned numbering of the phases ("stage 1" through "stage 6") as opposed to naming contributed to the muddle as did some plain awkward rules description.
Overall, I have to say that I found the components of the two Den of Thieves games fairly plain and also fairly expensive (26 cards for $7.95). I also felt like the extensive texts on the cards made the game hard to play, and that no attempt had been made to improve the gameplay through simplification and iconfication of those effects. Thus I can only award Den of Thieves "2" out of "5" for Style.
Fortunately, the game play was much better than the presentation ...
The Game Play
In Den of Thieves you attempt to be the first player to collect 10 or more coins through the user of thieves.
The Cards: The game centers around the 26 thieves. Each of them has a special action they can use. Most actions provide a player with coins, taken either from the bank or from other players. These transactions can be very simple (take 3 coins from the bank) or very complex (set up a confidence scheme where you give a player a coin in one round, then take more coins back from him in a later round). Other actions can cause a thief to interact with other thieves in various ways (e.g., killing a thief, bullying him, or just offering protection from other thieves). Finally, there's some cards that combine these two main sorts of actions (e.g., request another player hand you over some of your thieves, but he can give you coins instead).
The two games, Den of Thieves and Rival Den of Thieves are totally compatible, and each has a different set of thieves. The ones in the original Den are the more rough-and-tumble types, The Assassin, The Bounty Hunter, The Smuggler, The Flimflammer. The ones in the Rival Den tend to be classier thieves, such as The Banker, The Lawyer, The Shady Councilman, and The Gentleman Burglar.
Set Up: Each player randomly draws three thief cards and takes three coins. A bank is also filled with three coins per player. The deck of remaining thieves is set in the middle of the table, and the first thief is flipped up to form a discard pile. Before play starts, each player reads the text of each of his thieves, so that the other players know what he can do.
Order of Play: Each round of play includes all of the players together taking the following steps:
- Draw a card.
- Choose active card.
- Perform actions.
- Do honest work.
- Discard cards.
Draw a Card: In order, each player either draws a card from the draw pile or else takes the top discard. (This will typically bring him up to four thieves in his hand.) He reads the text of the new card to his opponents.
Choose Active Card: Each player now chooses one card as his active thief, and places it face-down in front of him. His remaining thieves, forming his "den" are placed face-down together, nearby.
Perform Actions: Starting with the first player, each player flips over his active thief then performs the action indicated on the text of this card. As previously noted, this will typically allow him to take coins from other players or the bank and/or affect other players' thieves--possibly their active thief, but more commonly their den.
Do Honest Work: Any player with fewer than 3 coins may now "do honest work" and claim one coin from the bank.
Discard Cards: Finally, starting with the first player, each player must discard thieves until he's down to three cards.
The first player now rotates clockwise around the table, and a new round begins unless the game has been won.
Winning the Game: The game ends at the end of a round wherein at least one player has 10 or more coins; the player with the most coins is the winner.
Relationships to Other Games
Den of Thieves (2003) is a role-selection game, where each player chooses a role each round which allows him to take a certain type of action. The classics in this genre are Verrater (1998) and Citadels (2000). In more recent years it's been adopted as a small part of much larger game systems such as Puerto Rico (2002).
Like most of these other games, Den of Thieves naturally incorporates aspects of bluffing, partially-hidden information, and second-guessing opponents, which innately create fairly interesting gameplay. Den of Thieves somewhat distinguishes it from other games in this category because the role-selection, and accompanying actions, form the entire core of the game without extra, outlying game systems.
The Game Design
I like the core mechanism seen in most role-selection games. In rating the Den of Thieves gameplay, the question really comes down to how well the role-selection system works.
Unfortunately, I really think the Components work against this type of gameplay. As I've already discussed, the rules for the cards are sufficiently complex, that you'll have a bare handle on what your cards do, and little idea of what other players' cards do. If the rules for each card were a lot simpler, and if each player had a quick reference card for what the other cards did, this might work even with these largish sets of 26 possible cards, but barring that any real understanding of what opponents can do is lost.
Second, most of the cards just don't have interesting interactions with each other. In both sets combined there are only a few cards which have a notable effect on other active thieves. The end result is that the particular card you played won't have much effect on what other people played, and vice-versa. Now, possibly this was a purposeful choice because it was decided that players wouldn't be able to make intelligent choices anyways with 26 or 52 cards out there, each with a unique and lengthy power. But, still, I think it costs a role-selection game a lot of its potential strategy when you're not figuring out what other players might play and trying to react accordingly.
Conversely, there is some "internal" strategic depth when you're figuring out which of your four cards to play. Quite often some cards will be better to play at certain times than others, and so you can engage in some enjoyable tactical thought by figuring out a sequence of plays. Still, this felt at least somewhat limited, and I think in many cases players switched up thieves they played as much for variety as for improved results--and often the same thieves seemed to be discarded as less valuable.
A few good things I'd say about the Den of Thieves game design: it plays quickly; it's fairly easy to understand once you get past the rule book; it's enjoyable; it keeps players engaged making (apparently) real decisions; and it gradually moves toward an ending without stalling out near the end-game as many lighter games do.
if anything I might have had too high of hopes for Den of Thieves, because I've quite enjoyed other role-selection games I've played, and that might have colored this review. However, I also believe that the game could have many notably better with improved Components and also that the gameplay could have been much more tactically important if there was more interaction between which thieves were actually played.
I'd overall give the Den games a "3" out of "5" for Substance, with the comment that the game probably would have moved straight up to "4" if the Components made it easier to play, and that I see even more potential for the system if the thief powers were carefully considered for a second edition.
And, despite the average rating, I thought it was fun and worthwhile to play.
Conclusion
Den of Thieves is a flawed, but nonetheless enjoyable, role-selection game. It's a good filler, and I'd expect it to get continued, light gameplay for a long time.
