Premise:

• 6 player games are known to be very imbalanced in favour of Liberals, and fascists rely too heavily on luck of the cards or an incompetent liberal player to have a chance.

• It would break the game to make it 3v3, because fascists could just chaos every government right from the start

• Some friends and I came up with the idea of adding an "on the fence" position that has reason to side with both fascists and liberals in different points in the game, thus making it effectively a 3v2 game with one somewhat neutral figure.

• The radical centrist's role is to give the fascists a much needed edge while still not giving away too much information or making it difficult for liberals.

Changes:

• Mark one liberal secret role "Radical centrist"

• Mark another liberal secret role "Liberal 1"

Pre game phase:

• Fascist and Hitler open eyes and raise thumbs as usual

• Fascist and Hitler close their eyes as usual

• Liberal 1 and Fascist put their thumbs up, keep their eyes closed. Radical Centrist opens his eyes.

• Therefore radical centrist knows one Liberal and one Fascist, but not which is which.

Rules:

• Radical Centrist wins if and only if liberals win (by policy or by shooting Hitler) after 5 fascist policies have been enacted. In a fascist victory or a Liberal victory with less than 5 fascist policies, Radical Centrist loses alongside the losing team.

• Radical Centrist is allowed to state which thumbs he saw at any point in the game.

• Any player may attempt to impersonate the Radical Centrist

• Any player may claim to have put their thumb up for the Radical Centrist part of the pre game phase.

Strategy:

• It is difficult to impersonate the Radical Centrist, as you would have to correctly guess Liberal 1 and the fascist.

• However it is also not necessarily desirable for the Radical Centrist to reveal this information too early on, as he could be excluded from liberal governments if liberals are winning.

• It is important for both the liberals and fascists to try to determined RC early on, as he has reason to side with whichever side is losing.

• It is best for the Radical Centrist to play as a liberal or fascist early, then come out and try to make deals with the liberals late game to try and negotiate victory.

Comments and Observations:

• It gives the liberals a bit of an advantage in finding Hitler, as 3 players can safely be eliminated as Hitler (Radical Centrist, fascist, Lib 1)

• It is statistically safe to shoot both the fascist and liberal 1 even if it is not suspected which is which. However, for this to happen would require 5 fascist policies and for Hitler to still be alive. However, the lack of incentive to try to shoot Hitler can feel like it is taking some depth out of the game.

• The bonus of probably narrowing Hitler down to three players is balanced out by the lack of incentive to shoot Hitler.

• Early on in our games with Radical Centrist, he won very infrequently as he still felt inclined to support liberals. When it was drilled in that the Radical Centrist is only a liberal in name, and loses with the fascists if liberals win with <5 fascist policies, the Radical Centrist began playing much more with self interest in mind, which led to closer games and more frequent Radical Centrist victories.

• As we play more games, the Radical Centrist is becoming more daring about fighting liberal governments if liberals are winning, and we expected this to result in liberals governments being voted down, but this is not the case as the fascists would give themselves away by voting no to a liberal government alongside the Radical Centrist. This is why the Radical Centrist does not simply have the power balance to vote down any government he wants, he needs to be sneaky about helping the losing side.

• There is no point trying to impersonate Radical Centrist as it is too much of a risk to guess fascist and liberal 1.

Conclusion:

• I have played more than 20 games with my Secret Hitler club with the Radical Centrist. There are no gross imbalances or flaws that have been noticed so far. Despite some of the smaller issues it brings up, we play with Radical Centrist every six player game we have.