All Guns Blazing

All Guns Blazing is unique in the way it requires players to work for their abilities. In most social deduction games, simply having a role means you will get certain information. In All Guns Blazing, you might need to get someone voted out to realise the full potential of your role. That’s because All Guns Blazing is a game of big moves — some that pay off and some that leave a trail of bodies in their wake.

Some of the biggest risks in All Guns Blazing are naturally taken by the Outlaws where they might make themselves a target or even nominate one of their own to receive a hidden boon.

The second major feature of All Guns Blazing is the inclusion of strangers — a neutral faction of powerful characters with the potential to swing the game or win it all by themselves. It is possible for these strangers to simply work with the good team and try to hunt down the Outlaws, but oftentimes a more interesting path awaits.

A Stranger Appears - Key Roles

When designing All Guns Blazing we knew we wanted factions to play a big role. We also thought a simple story of Settlers vs Outlaws didn’t quite capture the chaos a Wild West game should have. Thus the Strangers were created.

The Tycoon vs The Union Rep

Tycoon - Each night, turn someone into a labourer. You win if you have 4 labourers. You can’t win if the Union Rep is alive.

Union Rep - While you’re alive, players turned into labourers get their ability back the following night

The Tycoon is an almost evil addition to the game who seeks to strip players of their abilities to build the great American railroad. Labourers are living players with full voting rights but no ability. If the Tycoon gets to four Labourers, they win the game. But there’s a catch: as long as there’s a Union Rep in play, players lose their Labourer tag the very next day. 

This makes keeping the Union Rep alive important not just for the good team, but the Outlaws as well.

Chieftain - You know who the business owners are. You win if they die & you identify the Most Wanted

The Chieftain is an almost good character that has a vested interest in hunting down the Most Wanted but not for the same reasons. At the beginning of the game a Chieftain is shown any Business Owners in play and must attempt to turn other players against them while keeping an eye out for the Most Wanted. If the Business Owners are out of the game, The Chieftain can publicly accuse someone of being the Most Wanted and win the game if they’re correct. 

Seeing double - The Detective and The Cowpoke/ The Trapper and The Fence

Detective - Each time someone you nominate is voted out, learn a role

Cowpoke - You begin the game thinking you’re the detective, but the info you receive is false

One key feature of any good social deduction system is reasons to doubt information. The more valuable the information, the greater the need for doubt becomes. The Detective in All Guns Blazing must get a player voted out to receive information, but when they do, they get the most valuable information in the game. The very next night—before the Most Wanted attacks—the Detective points at a player, and the Storyteller shows the Detective their role.

What’s the catch? The Cowpoke does the exact same thing. The Cowpoke is given the Detective card at the beginning of the game, but none of their information is real. So for anyone who draws the detective card, you might have the most valuable information-gathering role in the game, or you could be a Cowpoke with none at all.

If you want to roll the dice on a high risk, high reward system with a ton of unique and engaging characters, All Guns Blazing is the game for your event.