The 10 Meanest Board Games Ever Created

 6. Citadels

Ah Citadels, ya little… bugger. In the game you gain money, use money to build cards, the first to build 8 cards ends the game and there’s endgame bonus points. So far nice and simple. The unique selling point of Citadels or the unique reason to kick the game into a factory fire is that each game there’s a bunch of roles that all do different things, and each turn the role cards will be handed around with you picking which role you want to be for that turn, from the ones that are left. Almost all the roles dick over other players, the Warlord destroys other people’s cards, the thief steals the entirety of someone else’s money, the Magician can swap hands with someone else and the Assassin can make one role skip their entire turn. The Assassin can get in the bin. In the current edition of the game there’s 27 roles to mix and match from, and the fact that a lot of their powers are about attacking roles rather than players, that means, because the roles are largely chosen in secret, it makes trying to screw each other over a fun little game of bluff and counterbluff, but there’s no denying that it’s borderline impossible to win citadels without royally screwing someone over at least once.