Saboteur - Different Player Numbers

When I first encountered Saboteur with its claim of playability from 3 to 10 players (a HUGE range) I was hoping it would fill a niche... "light, social, for playing with arbitrary numbers of folk" ... eg at the end of work on Fridays.

Does it really stack up? Well... not quite. It is ok for a variety of player numbers from three to seven and great with five. We find it falls flat with four. The rules are light enough to go over easily with almost anyone. Below are comments on various numbers of players.


Summary of Saboteur

Actually, the Saboteur game page has a fairly complete description of game play, which I recommend.


General Mood

Saboteur is fairly chaotic, and the payouts can be lopsided... with roughly a quarter of the players getting decidedly bigger payouts in each of three rounds you can vault to victory simply by accidentally being the one player to get a payout twice.

Depending on the group you are in, it may seem near impossible to "win" a round as Saboteur, or it may seem generally hard for the gold-seeking Miners to win. In general, I recommend you play this game in a spirit of fun and social chaos rather than focusing on intellectual satisfaction from the biggest bank at the end of the game.

It's also a heckuva lot more fun if the Miners play to jockey for position to be "the one" who discovers the gold, and not just complacently hand it off to whoever makes the final link.


"The Variant": There is a variant where any Miner with broken equipment at the end of the round gets no payout even if the gold is found. This tends to encourage the Miners to be a little less cooperative, which is not always a bad thing.


Different Player Numbers

Three Players: (Six cards each, zero or one Saboteurs in play.)

This works ok, and personally I'll happily play. The main downside is that over three rounds there's 58% chance of at least one time there's no Saboteur, which is less fun. If you find the Saboteur is having trouble getting a look in, use the "The Variant".

Even if you are a gold-seeking Miner, you can't afford to play totally efficiently... you're probably going to find the gold, but you don't want your play style to be too immediately obviously different when you are the Saboteur.


Four Players: (Six cards each, zero or one Saboteurs in play.)

Four players is a weak spot for this game. I feel you MUST play "The Variant", as otherwise it's usually too hard for one Saboteur to bring down three cooperating Miners. Only 20% of games will see three different players be Saboteur... either you'll have some rounds where nobody is Saboteur or the same person will be Saboteur twice, and neither of these are so much fun when the Saboteur has such a hard time.


Five Players: (Six cards each, one or two Saboteurs in play.)

This is the sweet spot for this game. Three Miners vs two Saboteurs makes for some fun play, and each round can go either way. Tweak it with "The Variant" if you prefer. The level of mutual suspicion, and the certainty that there is at least one Saboteur, seems to be enough to help even a solo Saboteur in with a chance... even if the solo Saboteur is prime suspect, the Miners will still be eyeing each other off with caution as to who might be a second Saboteur.


Note: We haven't tried "The Variant" with six or more players. I would expect it to lift the fun factor a little (as the Miners start in-fighting more) while making the game even more chaotic.


Six/Seven Players: (Five cards each, one to three Saboteurs in play.)
Here we still have the benefit of everyone knowing there's at least one Saboteur and probably more, but two things start to happen. Firstly, dropping to five cards per player noticeably reduces player options... we find quite a few more "I've got nothing I want to play" situations. Secondly, although turns are quick the amount of time between your own turns is starting to lengthen.

Still decent fun with six or seven, especially for those who are willing to get vocal in the accusations and counter accusations while waiting for their turn. You may spend an entire round fixing a series of broken equipment, which is still ok fun once in a while if you're in the mood for the silliness as everyone stacks on you.


Eight Plus: (Four cards each, two to four Saboteurs in play.)
With eight players there's time between turns and fewer total turns per player meaning each player feels less influence on the outcome. (Think UNO with 8+ players, but instead of each player only worrying about their own hand each player is trying to influence the total outcome of everyone's play.) There's also a higher frequency of "I've got nothing to play" with only four cards in hand.

For us this is dropping down the fun factor. Possibly it can be ok with 8+ players and the right mood, but for my mind we're not really going to give it much more of a chance.

I would say, take it out with 8+ only for sharing the social flavour of the game among players who already know and enjoy it for the chaotic process... it's a completely random outcome at this number.