Arthur’s knights ride out on five Quests — and hidden among them are the Minions of Mordred. Each round a Leader picks a Team, the whole table votes on it in the open, and the Team plays its Quest cards face down: a single Fail and the Quest is lost. Merlin knows the traitors but cannot say so; if Good wins three Quests, the Assassin gets one guess at who he is. With everything in the Big Box to add as you like: Lancelot, the Cleric, the Trickster and the other Characters, the Rogues, Sorcerers and Messengers, the Lady of the Lake, Excalibur, the Trapper and Plot cards. Five to ten players, peer-to-peer: no accounts, no server, just a room code. Bots fill any empty seat.
Two sides. Every player is dealt a secret Character: a Loyal Servant of Arthur (Good) or a Minion of Mordred (Evil). At 5 players it is 3 Good against 2 Evil; at 6, 4–2; at 7, 4–3; at 8, 5–3; at 9, 6–3; at 10, 6–4. The agents of Evil know each other.
Merlin and the Assassin are in most games. Merlin, on the side of Good, sees the agents of Evil — but if Good wins, the Assassin gets one chance to name him, and naming him wins it for Evil. So Merlin can only hint.
Team Building. Each round the Leader picks a Team for the next Quest — two to five players, as the Quest track shows. The Leader may pick themselves, or not.
The vote. Everyone, the Leader too, votes to approve or reject the Team; the votes turn over together. A majority approves it and it goes on the Quest; a tie or less rejects it, and the next player clockwise becomes Leader. If five Teams are rejected in a single round, Evil wins.
The Quest. Each member of the Team plays Success or Fail, face down. Good must play Success; Evil may play either. A single Fail fails the Quest — except the 4th Quest at 7 or more players, which needs two. Only the number of Fails is ever shown.
Winning. Three failed Quests and Evil wins. Three successful Quests, and the Assassin names Merlin: if right, Evil wins; if not, Good does.
Optional Characters.Percival (Good) knows Merlin. Morgana (Evil) appears to Percival as Merlin, so he sees two and cannot tell which. Mordred (Evil) is hidden from Merlin. Oberon (Evil) does not know the other agents of Evil, nor they him — but Merlin sees him.
The Lady of the Lake (optional, best at 7 or more). She starts with the player on the first Leader’s right. After the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Quests, her holder secretly sees one player’s loyalty — anyone who has not held her — may tell the table anything about it, and passes her to that player.
Talk. “Players may make any claims during the game, at any point in the game.” Use the chat: accuse, defend, bluff. Point at or tap anything at the table to see what it means; the vote record on the side keeps every Team and every vote.
The Big Box
Everything below is optional: the host picks it in the lobby. The rulebook advises adding one new Character at a time.
Without Merlin. “In most cases you will want to play with Merlin, but it is not required”; the modules below were designed to be played without him. With no Merlin there is no Assassin, and three successful Quests win it for Good — unless the Messengers are in, when the Assassin names both Good Messengers instead. Percival, who knows Merlin, needs him; Mordred, hidden only from Merlin, plays as a plain Minion.
Checking loyalty. The Cleric, the Lady of the Lake and some Plot cards check a player’s loyalty: that player passes a Good or an Evil Loyalty card, seen only by the checker. The Trickster (Evil) may lie and show Good; the Troublemaker (Good) must lie and show Evil.
More Characters. The Cleric (Good) learns at the start whether the first Leader is Good or Evil. The Lunatic (Evil) must Fail every Quest; the Brute (Evil) may Fail only the first three. The Revealer (Evil) must reveal themself after the second failed Quest. The Untrustworthy Servant (Good) knows the Assassin, and Merlin takes them for Evil; if three Quests succeed, the Assassin first tries to recruit them — guessed, they turn Evil and carry out the Assassination in the Assassin’s place.
Lancelot. A Good and an Evil Lancelot, who know each other. In Variant 1 they do not; Evil Lancelot is known to Evil but does not know them, and at the start of each Quest an Allegiance card (four No Change, two Switch) may make the two Lancelots change sides. In Variant 2 five Allegiance cards are dealt face up over the Quests at the start, and Evil Lancelot must Fail every Quest he is on.
Rogues. A Good and an Evil Rogue, or one alone; the Evil Rogue is hidden from Evil and from Merlin. After a Team is approved the Leader gives a Watch token to one member (not on the first two Quests at 5 or 6 players): a watched Rogue may not play their Rogue card. Rogue Success and Rogue Fail count as Success and Fail and leave a token on the Quest. The Good Rogue wins alone with Rogue Success on the third successful Quest and one before it; the Evil Rogue, with Rogue Fail on the third failed Quest and one before. A Rogue whose side wins otherwise has a partial victory.
Sorcerers. A Good and an Evil Sorcerer may play Magic; an odd number of Magic cards turns a Quest’s result around. The Evil Sorcerer may play Success or Magic, never Fail. Optional: the Evil Sorcerer stays unseen at the reveal.
Messengers. Two Good Messengers and an Evil one. A Good Messenger may play a Good Message (a Success) twice in the game; the Evil Messenger may play an Evil Message (a Fail). Each leaves a token. After the fifth Quest’s cards, three Good Messages let Good take a Fail off it, two Evil Messages let Evil add one — both, and nothing happens. At the end the Assassin may go after both Good Messengers instead of Merlin. Optional: the Senior Messenger knows the Junior.
The Trapper. Every Team takes one more player. Once the cards are played, the Leader looks at one and sets it aside: it does not count.
Excalibur. The Leader gives it to a member of the Team other than themselves. Once the cards are played, its holder may switch one other member’s card for their other one — and sees what it was. A card played face up cannot be switched.
Plot cards (here at 7 or more). At the start of each Quest the Leader draws two (7–8 players) or three (9–10) and gives each to another player. ♛ cards act at once: Are You the One? (check a neighbour’s loyalty), Show Your Strength (the Leader shows their loyalty to a player of their choice), Show Your True Nature (you show yours), Restore Your Honor (take a Plot card from another player). ⚜ cards are held until used: Lead to Victory (become Leader before the Leader acts), The King Returns (turn back an approved Team — a failed vote), We Found You! (make a member of the Team play face up), Ambush (look at a played card). ✿ Charge! stays all game: its holder votes first, for all to see.
The Resistance: Avalon and Avalon Big Box are by Don Eskridge, published by Indie Boards & Cards. This is an unofficial fan implementation. The rules, the charts and the reveal script that decides who sees whom follow the Big Box rulebook, read from RulesPal’s full transcription of it. The make-up of the Plot deck is The Resistance’s, whose nine cards the Big Box renamed: the counts come from its consolidated rules. Which seven Plot cards a table of five or six uses is printed on the cards and not yet checked, so Plot cards are played here at seven or more. Where the rulebook is silent — Excalibur switching a card from a set of three or four, the Evil Sorcerer’s optional rule, Percival and the Untrustworthy Servant in a game without Merlin — the choices made are noted in the code.
Keep it to yourself — “A player’s Character Card may not be revealed at any point in the game.”