by Stuart Urback
Cockroach Poker is a game about getting your friends to distrust you about the simplest of facts. Games that tap into our ability to deceive our friends are fun ways to play with the ties that bind us together. I can still remember playing B.S. on 10th grade beach hike. There was so much rain that we spent a lot more time inside a tent, trying to distract ourselves from the cold and the wet - tents never quite kept as much water out as you hoped. There's nothing quite like the fear and adrenaline of laying down 3 random cards from your hand and confidently calling them all 2s, while your friends look on in fear and consternation, wondering whether or not you have the ice in your veins to lie so boldly.
Cockroach Poker takes the core of BS - lying to your friends - and leaves the rest. The deck is smaller, the game is faster, and the moments are more explosive.
It inverts common gaming tropes: there are no winners, and only one loser. It's a game in which one person is coolly shoved off a ledge while the rest the lying liars watch.
Cockroach Poker is sassy; declaring one loser does two wonderful things: For a game that's about getting in other players' heads, forcing someone to lose feels like a more intuitive outcome than winning. It also solves a mechanical problem of "the runaway leader". Often, multiplayer games will devolve into one player sprinting ahead, and the rest of the group either clawing them back - extending the game in the process - or that original leader winning. In Cockroach Poker, players will often gang up on the player who is closest to losing, encouraging the game towards its natural conclusion.
Each step of the game takes you closer to the end:
Older games like BS often don't have mechanics to get players involved or to end the game. For games killing long days in a tent, BS is great. It's less great when you have about 4-hours a month at a bar to play with your friends. In Cockroach Poker, each round, someone is going to get a new card in front of them. Someone is going to be pushed closer and closer to losing. Also, instead of bluffing the entire group, the driver gets to choose a single player and ask them to call their bluff. This creates a natural driver for everyone to get involved, even if they're nervous. There is no reset mechanism, so the tension ratchets up and up until the game ends, often with a suspenseful bluff or call.
Cockroach Poker has guardrails: Everyone knows what they are trying to do and how they are trying to get there.
In BS, you would lay down a stack of cards, and look around the table, waiting for someone to call you. Because in Cockroach Poker you only call one player out, everyone knows exactly what is expected of them. Even players who might be unsure of how or whether or not to bluff, have opportunities to play the game, and decide to call their friends out, they can either call the bluff, or try their own hand at lying if they're too nervous. It's possible to win by telling the truth.
There are moments of tension and activity, followed by moments of calm:
Because it's clear who's actively in the game, Cockroach Poker is great spectator sport. A large majority of the time you are not directly involved in the game, you are watching two people locked in a battle of wits. It's fun to watch other players call and bluff each other, without the pressure of having to make a decision: all the while knowing that it might be you that gets thrown into the fray next. One of my favorite moments, was knowing that I wanted a particular player to have the card I played, but gave it to a different player, and watching in suspense while it got passed around the table until my target, the last player, called incorrectly, and my hot potato time bomb exploded in their face deliciously.
Cockroach Poker is fast, it only takes about 10-20 minutes to play, so as long as you have a group of at least 4, and some sort of surface to deliver cards on, you can make it happen. The biggest downside to the game is that it can get a tad aggressive. You will have to directly lie to your friends. I enjoy that. I find it fun to play with the boundaries of truth and trustworthiness in a safe space. However, that tension isn't as enjoyable for everyone I can also understand where that sort of tension makes you or your friend-group uncomfortable. Lying might not be a place where you want to go with the people you're with. If that's the case, Cockroach Poker is probably not for you.
Once you've decided to play, there's only one more snag you might hit. Because Cockroach Poker doesn't have any winners, it only has one loser, playing not to lose can trip some people up - it's very different than how the majority of other games are played. So if you know how to play, but are playing with others who don't, mention that the goal is to correctly deceive and call other players' deceits. Then, deal out the cards, pick a card in your hand, and play the first turn. Because the cost of losing a round is so low, you don't need to bother playing a practice round to start. Just dive right in, and play until someone loses.
Cockroach Poker is not the type of game that I would play over and over again over the course of an evening. The high of trying to lie to your friends can wear off pretty quickly, even if the strategy remains play after player. So if you're ready to take a step further, I might recommend these games:
If you're into the deceit, I might suggest something heavier for your next step, like Deception: Murder in Hong Kong. It's a murder mystery where you can't trust anyone around you.
If you prefer the mind-game aspect "this person lied last so they probably won't lie again", I might recommend something like Citadels or Libertalia. These games rely less on the lying element and more on trying to suss out how you think your opponents might behave.
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