Deduction · 2012

Avalon

Merlin knows the traitors and has to hide it: three quests for Good, three failures for Evil and the Assassin's last bullet.

5–10 players
30–45 min
1.9 / 5 · Light

Set up the game

0 of 6 steps

Tick each step as you complete it.

1Pick the tableau for your player count and put it in the middle with the score markers, team tokens and quest cards beside it. The round marker goes on the first quest space.
Components and tableau
2Deal loyalty: shuffle the good cards (one of them Merlin) and the evil cards (one of them the Assassin) for the player count, then deal one face down to each player. With 5 players it is 3 good and 2 evil; with 7, 4 and 3; with 10, 6 and 4.
Good character cards
3Run the night reveal out loud, following the script: everyone closes their eyes, the minions of Mordred recognise each other, and Merlin opens their eyes and sees the minions with a raised thumb. Nobody else opens their eyes at any point.
Evil character cards
4Give the leader token to a random player. That leader proposes the first team, and afterwards leadership passes clockwise every time a team is rejected or a quest is completed.
Tokens
5Decide whether to play with optional characters: Percival, Mordred, Oberon and Morgana. The rulebook suggests adding one at a time; with Percival and 5 players you must also add Mordred or Morgana.
Character
6Restate the goal before starting: Good needs three completed quests, Evil needs three failures or five rejected teams in a single round. And if Good reaches three, the Assassin still has one shot.
Table from above

What it is about

Avalon is the social deduction game played with faces, not cards. Everyone has a role, but information is unevenly distributed: the minions know each other, Merlin sees almost all of them, and the rest of the good side has only conversation and votes to work with.

The structure is simple and merciless: at most five quests, one leader proposing, a group voting, and a handful of cards deciding whether the quest survives. Good needs three quests; Evil needs three fails, five rejections in a row, or Merlin's name at the end.

The game is won or lost in the details: who approves whom, who changes their mind too quickly, and who knows things they should not. The Assassin waits for the last minute with a single bullet, and Merlin has to win without looking like someone who knows too much.

BGG page Official rulebook

Source note

The rulebook is a scan with no text layer, so it was read page by page. It covers the basic game with Merlin and the Assassin, the four optional characters and the night reveal script. Component photos come from the BGG gallery.

EN rulebook (Indie Boards & Cards, 2012) · Reviewed: 24 Oct 2026