Once you start playing Avalon, you'll never go back to the Resistance. Avalon is the Resistance perfected. The different types of tokens are very similar to each other in Resistance which makes them hard to tell apart. Avalon's tokens are different enough to cause less confusion. Resistance does have expansions to make the base game more interesting, but none of them are as good as Avalon, except for the one expansion (Hidden Agenda) that has cards to essentially turn the Resistance into Avalon, but again the components are superior in Avalon. You can always play regular Resistance with Avalon by removing the character cards. Also you need to get a sword (Excalibur) to play. You don't need the official promo, in fact a toy sword from an action figure or something is even better (sometimes we use a plastic knife or a pen) . Giving someone on the mission the power to change a vote adds another level of depth to the game and is a lot of fun.
I see a strong benefit to having both. I believe that the Resistance is great with 5-6 players. (Tons of fun with more, but is better than Avalon with a smaller group.) I think the special characters in Avalon add something to the depth of Avalon with more than 6 players. So I think you have both (not that expensive) and judge on group size and interest.
Boardgamegeeks estimates 30 min playtime but (at least) with 8-10 players it lasts 90 minutes easily. And by the way, Avalon can be played with normal 52 card deck easily.
Unfortunately several reviews on youtube primarily discuss the game as playing in a small game, with 5-6. But I think Avalon is fully superior at 8-10 players. It's wildly more complicated and fun. Everyone has different levels of secret information, and trying to get that "perfect" set of 5 players for the last crucial round can be so stressful and fun.
I love social deduction games. I've been part of some crazy intense Resistance games where it came down to the last mission. The best part is that no one is eliminated, unlike in Bang! or Werewolf. I, however, will not be buying Avalon. It's way too similar to Resistance. I don't need two of the same game.
I really want to play Avalon now after watching this video. IMO - The Resistance is too binary. In a game with 5 players, going on a mission with two people is almost useless. If you're a spy, you have to let it succeed. I really like how Avalon introduces additional character cards, which create additional objectives other than finding the bad guys / sabotaging the mission. Multiple objectives is makes these types of games more fun, which is why Shadow Hunters is so awesome. Great video!
I don't understand why should the good guy ever vote no for the mission? if you fail the vote you fail the mission, if you accept there is a chance you win mission and loose mission. What is the point of vote?
On revealing the Success and Fail cards, do you stop revealing once a Fail card is shown to cover up how many Fails there are OR do you reveal all cards to show the total number of Fail cards? (In the exception of the quest that needs 2 Fail cards.)
Keep both the plot cards from the resistance work with Avalon. So if you bought resistance it's not a loss, but it mixes the themes a bit. Don't throw away the resistance. You can keep the plot cards in the avalon box.
the good guys only lose if there are 5 rejected proposed missions in 1 round. You vote to reject missions because you think a spy is on that mission or you want to prolong voting to gain more information.
That's where the fun is.. you know he knows, but no one else knows. Now it's up to you to convince others he's just trying to frame you if he gets outspoken
Let me ask you one thing guys, the original The Resistance does not come with the Oracle? The brazilian version comes with the Oracle and the Assassin as an expansion, but does not have cards like Morgana and Percival.
Here in the US the Assasin and "Merlin" are included in the expansion Hidden Agenda along with rethemed versions of the other cards like Morgana and Percival.
Couple of things: though the game looks fun and I suspect I'll be getting it soon, I just can't get over the "if you're a good guy then you HAVE to vote success on the quest". Don't know why I'm hung up on that. Guess it sounds boring for the good guys? The other thing is that I don't know why both Avalon and Resistance didn't include some thematic cards (maybe 20 or so) that give a brief description of what the quest is. Just to add a little umph.
Good suggestion on the thematic elements. I wonder if it would make it confusing for people playing the first time since they would needlessly consider the story in their voting. I have Resistance. The good guys must vote success to keep it balanced...the government (not a corporation) spies would win every time with freebie failure missions, plus, as a good guy, you want to use the failed missions to decide who may be a spy. There is zero incentive to failing a mission as a good guy.
I hope you ended up getting it, I think it's an incredibly fun game, and superior to Resistance. Especially if you can get 7-10 players. To your question: being "good" isn't boring in Avalon because it's the job of all the good players to work to make sure only missions with a good lineup get sent. If you're a good player with extra knowledge, like Merlin or Percival, that makes it fun because you have added responsibility and added deception. IF you're a regular good with no extra knowledge, then it's actually kind of fun and freeing because you approach the game with a clean slate and one goal: watch the other people and find out who you can trust. A player who sits back and doesn't participate in the deduction conversations is probably going to be treated as suspicious--because good players will be actively trying to solve the mystery. That means watching votes, listening to what people say, and in the last stages you make the case for what the winning quest lineup will be. It's less stressful than being a minion or Merlin, especially at the high player counts like 9 or 10.
avocadotart boy have things changed in 6 years since I posted this! You know, I never did end up getting this game. A friend did however. We played many many times over the years and it IS a fun one! Probably my favorite hidden identity game out there. I also ended up getting a massive library of other board games, creating a board game room and hosting game nights on a regular basis as well as attending others. I wasn’t really into board games 6 years ago but the bug bit and I went head first into that endless morass. Ended up with about 300 games before I had to reel in the addiction, ha. Finally stopped buying them like candy and have thinned the collection to about 100 of the “best of the best”. That was a great choice. If you have games that you’ve never played or have only played once and wish you’d play it more...it’s time to stop. 😜 So yeah, Avalon is a great game! We always found teaching it kind of oddly hard. Ironically, newcomers get stuck on the “questing” part. They just can’t fathom that we are going on a quest but really aren’t. “So, what’s the quest?” “Well, it’s whatever. Make something up.” “But I mean, what are we doing next?” “Seeing if we are succeeding or failing at the quest.” “WHAT QUEST!?” Turns out, those cards would have come in handy 😇
