Authority is a Social deduction game for 5-12 players.
Two factions of roughly equal strength, Loyalists and Rebels, duke it out while third parties like the Usurper and the Mediator attempt to achieve their own ends. Every player has a second secret "Rank" card, which allows high ranking players to issue orders to lower ranking players. The Loyalists always have the Commander role, who begins with the highest Rank, while all other players get random ranks, with lower ranks being more common.
Information is limited, as is "Ammo", the only resource in the game. Having a high Rank is nice, but also makes a player a big target.
The Loyalists and Rebels each win by outnumbering the other, while the Usurper wants to gain the highest Rank in the game, and the Mediator wants to end the game between a Loyalist and a Rebel.
This game provides examples of:
- A House Divided: The setting of the game is a civil war with the two factions at each others' throats.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each faction has a distinctive color: The Loyalists are blue, the Rebels are red, the Usurper is yellow and the Mediator is grey. The Invaders from the Call To Arms expansion are green.
- Comeback Mechanic: The Mediator generally wants to support the losing faction due to their win condition.
- Expansion Pack: Three expansions are planned.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: It's left rather vague which (if any) of the Loyalists and Rebels are good or evil. The Usurper and Mediator seem fairly obviously evil and good respectively, though even the Mediator usually achieves their goal by killing people.
- Hit Points: Every player begins with three Health Tokens. There is no way to regain Health Tokens in the base game, though having an unrevealed Private Rank effectively grants you a fourth health token.
- Instant-Win Condition: The Usurper wins immediately if they gain the Major Rank.
- Klingon Promotion: Killing another player allows you to gain their Rank.
- La Résistance: The Rebels.
- Last Chance Hit Point: The extra hit point granted by the Private Rank comes into play the moment you are down to 1 Health and get shot.
- Player Elimination: If a player loses their last health token, they are eliminated.
- Spot the Imposter: The Usurper usually pretends to be a Rebel, which causes trust issues within the Rebel faction.
- The Leader: The Commander, for the Loyalist faction
- Unwitting Pawn: Having a high Rank, or simply bluffing, can allow you to force enemy players to carry out actions advancing your interests. A Rebel softening up the Commander before the Usurper fires the final shot is quite common among newer players.
- Vanilla Unit: Regular Loyalists and Rebels with the Private Rank.
- Wild Card: The Usurper and Mediator usually align with one of the factions to start off with, but depending on the circumstances, they may change sides.
