Hoax

About this board game

Hoax is a bluffing and identity-deduction board game for 3–12 players, with a play time of 45 minutes. First released in 1981, it challenges players to conceal who they really are while working to discover the identities of everyone else.

Each player is secretly assigned one of six different characters. Every character has unique abilities, but players may pretend to be any character and use that character’s corresponding powers. This creates a constantly shifting contest of claims, suspicion, and deduction.

Abilities help players acquire three different types of goods. These goods can then be spent to obtain clues about opponents’ identities, giving players a way to test suspicions and narrow down who may be behind each role.

• Secretly assigned identities
• Six characters with unique abilities
• Bluffing and character impersonation
• Three types of goods used to gain clues
• Majority-based challenges and high-stakes reveals

The central tension of Hoax comes when most of the other players believe you are pretending to be a character you are not. At that moment, you must choose between admitting the deception and permanently losing access to that character’s power, or revealing that you really are the character and winning the game.

With its focus on hidden identities, flexible use of character powers, and costly decisions under suspicion, Hoax turns every claim into part of the larger mystery. The game was later re-implemented as Die Erben von Hoax.