IAMA designer of The Resistance, AMA

What's your opinion on the online implementation (Freenode IRC #playresistance)?

Well done and nicely implemented. Enthusiastic cheers to nolemonplease for getting it together.

Dude, I love your game. It's a hit at parties. How did you decide to come up with this game?

Also, could you perhaps provide proof? Thanks!

I was sitting at the back of a lecture hall for a group of kids attending a two-week summer leadership course for which I was a counselor, doodling on a clipboard thinking about social games and how to improve on Werewolf. Suddenly the idea of TRUSTING people as opposed to LYNCHING them came up, and the rest came from there. I played the game with the high-schoolers for the rest of the camp session; they really liked it and that was enough inspiration to keep going.

I still remember one of the first sessions with them, it was the 5th round, I was Resistance and was desperately trying to convince a high school kid to trust me, yelling that we were all going to blow up if he didn't, another girl yelling back the whole time. Finally he did and we won, to raucous cheers. That's when I knew it was something good.

Proof here.

Also here ;) http://imgur.com/rASlXG8

Hello! The title is quite vague, so could you please specify what game it is? I'm a big fan of the boardgame one. If that was you, congratulations!

Yeah, that's true, and thank you. The suggestion I'd received for it was "IAMA designer of The Resistance, a game of social deduction goodness, AMA," which I see now would have been better (any way to change it?). Added some detail to the description though so hopefully that helps.

That's awesome! I'm glad I browsed at this time. I'm a game designer as well and The Resistance is one of my favorite. I spend this New Year's playing it with mostly non-gamers.

My questions are:

-Why did you choose Print and Play for its first release? Did the good feedback help to convince a publisher that it was a good idea to invest in it?

-Why is the second edition's box that big? The components feel really solid but I can't carry it in a pocket now.

-In my experience the people who think they're good spies never fail the first mission. Have you noticed patterns like these?

Much love from Portugal!

Great questions,

-First chose Print n Play because I'd never published a game, didn't know the business, and wanted what I thought was a great system out there. And yes, IMO the good feedback is what got publishers' attention.

-2nd Edition is definitely bigger, but there's more to it. More boards, better components. I also loved being able to fit the original in a back pocket, but given I have both, I still bring the red box to parties.

-I'm always surprised how different the strategies are among people who think they're good. Some say always fail mission 1, some say wait. I try not to take a side (and wouldn't know which to take).

In our games, the spies win a lot. The plot cards help, but it also takes away from the cleanness and purity of the original game. We were thinking of trying to balance it by saying if there are multiple spies on the mission, and the mission passes, the spies lose because they are dysfunctional. Do you have other favorite ways to balance?

My favorite and most often used method of balancing is through the Lady of the Lake token found in Avalon, which I use in basic Resistance as any token and call it the Inquisitor. This is the simplest and most effective way to balance the game IMO.

I don't have any questions, but I wanted to let you know that Resistance was involved in starting my current relationship!

Congrats, glad to hear it. That warms my spy heart.

Hello, big fan of The Resistance! Probably the most fun I have with any game.

I have the original game, and love the theme a lot. Why did you (or whoever made that decision) decide to change the theme in Avalon?

The theme switch decision was not my call, though I understand the reasoning- basically to reach a wider audience for whom future dystopia might not appeal.

How do you transition from the prototype board game you've developed and honed over time into a polished and published final product? Also, given I'm not a graphic designer I do not know how to create professional artwork for any of my games. Do you have any advice for the marketing the first version of your game? Thanks again for doing the AMA!

The Resistance isn't really a board game, so I didn't need to worry too much about graphics - the very first version was played with a deck of cards. However I did get a lot of help from Chris Jones to make nicer cards and a prototype box for sending to testers and publishers. Marketing-wise, I don't have that much experience. I really liked the PnP BGG method. IMO if your game is good, it will get noticed.

Chris on BGG: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/user/Goldenturkey

The box he helped me make to promote the game way back when: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/605119/don-e

A few of the very original Specialty cards from his gallery: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/589635/goldenturkey

In The Resistance, what side do you prefer playing as?

I love them both. Totally different, both totally intense. Unless my sister and I are the spies. Then we know you don't have a chance.

I love both versions! I have the original print & play, but have gifted the Red Box and recently gotten a copy of Avalon for myself. Here is my question:

I enjoy other social deduction games as well (Bang! and Werewolf for example), and feel like The Resistance solves one of the main problems with those games - player elimination. Do you feel there are any unresolved structural problems with The Resistance that a future game or expansion may try to tackle?

Avalon added Lady of the Lake, which is the only thing I later made and wished were added to the base game. With that addition (for those wanting it), I'd say I'm totally satisfied with the game. Given Avalon already added a number of game-twisting scenarios, any future version would (will) probably be entirely gut-wrenching.

I've played a lot of Werewolf/Mafia, but one of the flaws it has, particularly with larger groups, is player elimination, and early eliminated players have quite a rough time of it. Was werewolf your inspiration, with removing player elimination a specific design goal?

Removing player elimination was one of the major goals, and yes Werewolf was the base inspiration. But there were also the goals of including more informed decisions and removing the need for a narrator.

Hey Don,

I LOVE The Resistance! We started a board game club on campus and we play both it and Ultimate Werewolf every meeting. We love social games and reading people. The Resistance is perfect and we love that there is no player elimination! That being said, I have two questions:

First--you designed the resistance to scale from 5 to 10 players. Why did you stop at 10, and what do you consider the "best" numbers to play with? My group has found we prefer an odd number of players; though big, 10 people games can be interesting as you tend to develop "sects" within the game moreso than others.

Second--with plot cards, were there any ideas you had for plot cards and threw out or didn't feel quite fit what you were looking for? If so, what were they?

Thanks so much for doing this AMA! I got super excited when I saw this.

-I stopped at 10 because I felt, beyond that, it was becoming a random guessing game a la (though not all agree) Werewolf at larger numbers. I've played lots of games that lose their integrity at varying numbers and I wanted Resistance to stay true to deduction and logic (and calls from the gut) at every count.

-Plot Cards: They are only partially my design, as a number were developed by the publisher. There were at least a few that couldn't work for clear balance reasons, but sorry no stand-outs ;)

I got drunk with you at staging in DC. We played...liquor pong maybe?

Sounds about right

Damn that's a fun game. I've never yelled at my friends so much.

At first I read your post as "the social DESTRUCTION game" and I feel that that's more accurate.

Hah! Nice.

i hate you and all my friends because of your game. needless to say, i play way too much. keep up the good work.

Haters gonna hate ;)

Love the game, we play it just about every week at our game night. The Avalon version gets way more play time. One of our guys wrote an app for it to make the eyes open, thumbs up phase go pretty damn smooth. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=landister.home.resistanceavalontracker

Thanks for making this game.

Got it on my phone right now, well done.

Hello Don. I'm a huge fan. I own both Resistance and Avalon. My gaming group is quite large so it's awesome to be able to play a game that supports up to 10.

My question is, what other games do you love that can support a large number of players? Also, will your future projects be geared towards more party games, or will you mix it up?

Hi Fordy, glad to hear it. I honestly rarely play games for large groups of players other than Resistance. I really hate waiting around in games, especially when I know there are 5+ players ahead of me. That's a major reason for the simultaneous actions in Resistance. But if I were to say something, it'd be Bohnanza and I'm the Boss, which are both very interactive even on other players' turns.

Future project-wise, can't say definitely but at the moment I'm working on a Resistance follow-up and other social games. I just love games where people spend more time looking at each other than the board.

On the completely other side of that, I love the GIPF series of games and have one similar-type game of my own, though I doubt it will ever see publication since these just don't sell that well.

Thanks for the reply! Any advice on how to rebuild relationships that have been shattered by your game?

lol not possible.

A school of thought in designing games (that Resistance definitely seems to follow) is to "Make it as simple as necessary, but not simpler". Could you share an example of a mechanic that was particularly difficult to cut when designing Resistance?

Great question. And yes, Resistance was definitely made with that in mind. I'd say a tough part to cut was the mission map. Whereas in even the PnP version there is simply an increasing line of required spies, at one point there was a series of locations from which the players could choose to attack, requiring differing levels of players, sabotages, and even required experience (how many successful missions a player has had been on) in order to enter. And each would also offer its unique reward.

I liked this idea of having a sort of unique campaign each time, but the rest of the game was so streamlined that I couldn't find really unique ways to differentiate the various campaign routes enough to make them worthwhile. So in the end they were cut and the direct line came in. You can still see the concept of this though in the form of the Targeting variant, which I still very much enjoy and often use with groups that play regularly. And who knows, maybe we'll see a map again someday.

Obvious question: Are you a spy? Love the game, keep up the good work.

No but he is. Look at him. Just LOOK at him!

In the Avalon expansion, which role is your favorite to play and why?

I really enjoy them all, but maybe Percival? I enjoy playing him because he has the responsibility to protect Merlin, but doesn't have the tough job of communicating and hiding from the Spies. And figuring all the antics you can do to make the Spies believe you're him is straight up fun.

Are you a spy?

Are you wearing that red shirt for a reason? Huh. Suspicious.

A question from a friend who doesn't want to sign up for reddit:

You're from Oklahoma. So are several of my favorite Resistance players [some from your hometown even]. What is it about the state of Oklahoma that makes people so drawn to games of lies and deception?

I guess the weather forecasters lied to us so many times as children, leading to heavy jackets on blistering days and no rain coat in downpours, that our hearts turned cold to truth and honesty.

TIL that the guy who invented The Resistance lives half an hour from me!

Past tense might be more accurate ;) but I do visit

Thanks for the AMA.
-Did you farm out the artwork? If so, how did you go about finding the artist?
-Also, when introducing it to other gamers, I often describe it as a boiled down Battlestar. Did that type of game inspire you or was it a brain child entirely?
I don't mean to suggest that you ripped off another game, just that we all draw inspiration from other things so I was curious if that was the case here or not. Edit for spelling. Stupid brain

-artwork/production was totally up to the publisher, Indie Boards & Cards.

-I've actually never played Battlestar, though I love the series. I've heard it's a great game but a bit long. I like quick and painful.

Inspiration-wise, I'd say it came from of course Werewolf, and generally my experience playing modern board games which I could see had developed new mechanics, new ways to get past the shortcomings boiled into older designs. So I had a shot at it.

Thanks for doing this IAMA.

Love playing Resistance; my group of friends and I played over New Years weekend, and one couple who ended up on either side got so angry with each other, they didn't speak to each other the rest of the trip. Needless to say, it only made me love the game all the more.

I was wondering if you could share some instances you've encountered of Resistance causing social ruin?

I once saw my buddy's fiancee get so angry that he hadn't trusted her she threw her glass of wine at the floor. Not exactly social ruin but helping to mop it up wasn't fun.

I love The Resistance because it's simple and can be taught to just about anybody. However, I feel like it probably wouldn't work for kids below a certain age, like 10 or younger -- because they'd probably just pick their friends to go on missions, and they might feel insulted when their friends were lying to them, even if it's just a game.

Have you thought about how you might design a Resistance-like game geared towards children?

I taught English to children for awhile and basically what I did was play Werewolf without the night phase. So essentially the kids just chose who to "put in timeout" until either there were no bad guys left or parity (same or greater number of bad than good guys). It was super fast and they loved it.

I just want to say thank you, for revealing to me that my girlfriend is a fantastic liar! Your awesome game brought a side of her I have never seen.

How do you go about getting a game idea published? Me and my friends have had ideas stewing in our brains but don't know where to start in terms of making something that would sell.

I'm glad the reveal went smoothly!

-I suggest not designing for what will sell, but what you enjoy. If you do and then get to the point that you really, really, really like it, then's the time to think about publication/whether it could sell.

To that end, you will probably have to mercilessly simplify the game, which will probably benefit it in the end. Amazing how many house rules get made in a house with friends. To do that just think, "What's fun about my game?" Get your friends to tell you. Then get rid of everything that's chrome (unnecessary/overly thematic rules) and try to even get rid of rules you thought were completely necessary but never tried living without.

You'll be surprised how it's possible to identify the fun through this sort of design surgery. Then streamline everything to that. Resistance has just two major mechanics: voting and sabotaging. Once upon a time there was more but they didn't strengthen these core fun elements, so off they went. You can do that too.

Looking back at your question I realize this answer fit more with the 'aspire game designer' question but I hope it helped here as well. To say briefly--> Don't design to sell, design for fun. If it's fun, look into it and keep it simple and unique.

I believe limitations help creativity, so I tried to learn the manufacturing costs and designed the game that was the cheapest to produce. Turns out it's 54 cards.

I have a more complex one, but I thought I would try designing and polishing the "cheap" one would help me get through to the publishers. When I had an audience and the publisher's trust I would bring out the second one.

It did, and I'm working with a publisher to bring the card game to life! After nailing down the limitations I just had fun with it, trying out new things and taking out unnecessary parts. I believe I came through with a very original core mechanic that players really seem to enjoy.

Congrats! Actually The Resistance was first made exactly the same way, with just a deck of cards. You're right, it's amazing how limits drive creativity. Let me know more about your game sometime, would be happy to offer input.

I'm a little confused. There's no doubt that I think you're a designer for The Resistance, but who's Travis for Indie Games? I bought Avalon from him and that's usually who I get updates from. :P

But I do have questions.

1) How successful do you think Kickstarter has been in aiding your sales? I mean I think it's personally fantastic that The Resistance does very well in the casual board game community, but I know that Kickstarter has really amplified it's exposure. Does the cut that Kickstarter takes hurt that much?

2) Is there any hopes in expanding the game past 10 players? I personally can see the problems (ergo mostly downtime between players), but I'm wondering if it's been considered.

-Travis is the owner of Indie Boards & Cards, which publishes The Resistance.

-I'm not up on the numbers related to Kickstarter, but from everything I've seen yes, it was a significant boost. Also not sure about their cut.

-It is always possible I'll come up with a great way to expand it past 10 players, but wouldn't unless it could be done while preserving the essential logic and deduction of the game.

Hi Don! The Resistance is a great game, my group loves it. We had to stop playing it for a while after one guy "bet" us $120 (the contents of his wallet) that he wasn't a spy. Is that considered cheating?

What's the process of getting a game published like? How difficult is self publishing?

Also, Werewolf has always been called The Village in my circles for as long as I can remember. Anyone else?

The amount of real-world aspects your group chooses to allow in the magic circle (the game's space of play [read Rules of Play!]) is entirely up to the group. Personally I would never allow it because it would break the circle.

Getting a game published could be simple, could be extremely hard. For The Resistance it wasn't too difficult, for which I'm thankful. I would say I only self-published in the sense that I uploaded the file to BGG, also not too difficult beyond preparing your ego for potential disaster.

What is the coolest play you've seen someone make in either version of the game?

I've seen and regularly see a lot of cool plays. Can't think of one definitively, but I always enjoy playing with the Excalibur card from Avalon, which allows one player to blindly switch someone else's played mission card. Even when in play it often isn't used, but when it is, and it works, the mayhem is priceless.

How can we really trust you're the designer and aren't lying to us?

You never know, I could be a Spy who sabotaged the whole thing...

The Resistance (or Avalon) closes out our game night so people can unwind/sober up. We've played dozens, possibly a hundred or so, games and the blue team has yet to come up with a winning strategy. Recently, we've resorted to covert eye signals, nudging, footsy, whatever it takes to signify who the good guys are, but even that gets subverted once one of us that knows the signals becomes a traitor.

My question is, are there any secrets you've figured out in solely the base game (no Merlin, lady of the lake, plot cards) that helps you win as the good guys?

I understand this might be akin to ruining your own game, so if you'd rather, you can just tell me the best combination of Merlin, Lady, Plot Cards, etc. to use. (We mostly just play base since we'll often have one or two new players.)

And thanks for the great game!

-The Resistance absolutely can win without the aid of special cards. It just takes listening closely, the will to speak up, and a merciless use of the Reject card when the mission seems fishy.

-Combination of card-wise, there are many varieties I like, but one I particularly enjoy is base Resistance + Lady of the Lake + Excalibur. These are two very easy additions to the game, but that have the potential for major upheaval.

Hey Don! My name is Jordy Knoop I did the original 10 character cards for the Resistance (here: http://jordyknoop.com/2d). I absolutely love the game and have been playing it a lot as of late It's been great seeing the succes it's had. I'm just curious if you had any royalties setup it was my first real professional gig as a starting artist getting 400 dollar for all cards and seeing the game pop up in every country and publishers earning money with it I sometimes wonder if I should have gotten more. Seems the 4 dollar per hour rate that I got is a lil small for all those other publishers now publishing the game (just recently saw it pop up in my country for example).

Regards, Jordy

Hi Jordy, thanks for the great artwork for the game. I would direct your query to the publisher since I'm not related to the business end.

Do you do game design as part of your free time or have you devoted your career to it at this point? How does that work financially? About how long did it take to make the Resistance (or any other games) in each stage? (Concept, production, playtesting, etc.) Any recommendations for an aspiring game designer? Thanks for the AMA! Huge fan, trying to expand your California following!

-I design in my free time. Although my career isn't devoted to it, these days I work a bit less and study/act a bit more, which also means more time and inspiration for design. Financially, I focus on being happy ;) Resistance hasn't made me a millionaire but it has helped allow me to focus on the things I love.

-The majority of The Resistance was designed and rapidly playtested in about two weeks. I then spent a good chunk of a year working out the fine details, balance, player numbers, etc. The most significant piece of the puzzle added later was probably the '4th round sabotage' rule. It was so difficult to find the simplest possible way to make it harder for the spies while keeping things tense, but I think that did it. I would say overall the game took most of a year to develop, and production by Indie took another six months.

-It's hard to give advice to aspiring designers because there are so many great works and comments out there that do a better job than I could. But I'll say a bit of my experience... In college I read 'Rules of Play' by Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen cover to cover. I can not recommend this book highly enough. It taught me so much about rules, design intent, and how players/society interact with those rules/game. It's a tome of a book but fascinating, and I found myself jotting design notes and stopping for weeks on end to design because of it. Alright, that was a tangent. Here's a list:

1. Read 'Rules of Play.' While doing this do the following:
2. Design in your free time (you are probably doing this already)
3. Play with your friends. Make more friends and play with them. Design is social.
4. Figure out what kind of fun you have. If it's the kind of fun you want, you're golden. If not, redesign.

(5.) Only try to publish if you really love it and believe it'd be unique in the market. I have at least a dozen designs I enjoy but never intend to publish for this reason, (and if I did, I would start with PnP on BGG) and there's nothing wrong with that. Enjoy the game you have.

We love your game! Cheeky and self serving, I know, but did you like our video explaining how to play it. If so, have you checked out any of our other videos?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuyuHmUdA7k

It's a good video, thanks for posting

Wow, thanks for the AMA!

So, first, to thank you for creating The Reistance. I just received it this Saturday and played my first games on Saturday and Sunday and had a lot of fun. It was everything I expected, and more.

Now some questions: An interesting fact that I learned today is that it seems that in the Czech Republic (as well as Slovakia, probably) The Resistance was released as (basically) a completely visually remade game called "Mafie" (Mafia).
As far as I understood, there's a Czech board games publisher who publishes a lot of Czech versions of popular games.

From what I saw in boardgamegeek, it's the only version of the Resistance that has changed the art style.

So my questions about it: First, is it official? If yes, Why the change of the art style? Why the change of the name? Did you actually have a saying in it, or it was entirely the publisher's decision?

Next, another question about a version of the game. It seems (again according to boardgamegeek) that there was a version of the game for print and play, but it's no longer available. Why has that changed? You wanted to become popular by giving players the opportunity to print it themselves but you no longer need it now, so it's a way of not getting more profits? (btw I tried my best so that it doesn't sound biased, I'm not saying it's bad or good, I would just like to know more).

And now some gameplay (of The Resistance: Avalon, not the original game) questions:
Since I just played my first few games, everyone was a beginner, so we decided to only play with basic roles, no Merlin, no assassin. It was fun, but spies were winning most of the time.
Anyway, question - what is the best way to deal with good guys submitting Fail cards on a quest as an error or a "smart" play? So far we've called it and stopped the game every time we noticed, and it's kind of annoying that we have to break the game, but I think it's better than the alternative, when we found out in the end of the game that one of the good guys played it as an accident and therefore threw us completely away for the whole game...
Another newbie question - do you think this way of playing, first vanilla (no roles, not even Merlin) is good for complete newbies? When do you think we should add those roles? And when the rest of the roles?

I recently saw some interesting discussion about what is legal in the game and what not. Basically, it seems that short of flipping up your character card, different players have different ideas what's legal.
Whispering and winking seems to be OK to some people, some define that everything over the table is fine, so no kicking under it, but some think it's fine too, and can be used by Merlin, spies or both.
And I personally was thinking about speaking in another language (because the group I played with is anyway international and we all speak English, even though it's not the first language for any of us) to either give information to fellow spies or even just to explain my ideas to someone more clearly.
So where do you draw the line?

Do you think it's possible to accommodate more than ten people in a game of The Resistance? Or it becomes too hard to manage so it's no longer fun?

Do you have a preferred number of players to play with?

And finally, how do you see the future of The Resistance? Expansions for either the base with more plot cards, or Avalon with more roles?
Another re-skin with different mechanics?

Thank you again for doing this AMA. I guess the questions became quite a few in the end, I hope you'll have time to read it and answer as many as you can/would like.

edit: formatting

Let me see what I can get to here...

-The Czech Mafie version is official. I wasn't an active part of its production but yes it's official. I can't speak to the reasons it was changed, probably to fit local demand but you'd have to ask the local publisher there (to whom the game was sub-licensed).

-The game is no longer PnP because a great product is available at a reasonable price. Yes of course earning profit is a part of that, but I fully support the current commercial offering.

-I would deal with errors by making the rules very clear beforehand, and on a case by case basis. No one answer there (but usually a re-deal. Doesn't take much time).

-I would always start with vanilla Resistance and add roles later, pretty much in the order already in the rules.

-Different groups will have different standards for what's legal, totally up to you. In my groups we would not allow communication in another language.

-I enjoy the game most at 5-8 players, but also think it's great at 9-10.

-The future will probably be a more thorough reconstruction of the game, but nothing is certain. I'll let you know.

Thanks Don, I personally love the game. I've been playing the game on the boardgamegeek forums for a while now and it prompted me to buy both versions.

My question is -- do you have anything brewing you are ready to share?

Hi Bill, glad you like it. I am always brewing something and it usually comes out bitter, but that's game design. Generally speaking I'd like to make a Resistance expansion/sister game that sees the world from the perspective of the Spies, thus a thematic shift, and along with that I'd want to turn many of the core elements of Resistance/social deduction games (a la uninformed majority vs informed minority) totally around and still have them work. As for how to do that, I'm working on it. Wait for it.

What is the official ruling on the plot cards? Should the leader see the plot card before he/she hands it to someone face down? The rules are quite vague and we're not sure which is the correct way. Thank you.

Yes, the whole group sees the card and the Leader hands it to someone.

Interesting. For the majority of my time playing The Resistance, we played where the leader hands a face down plot card to someone and only the person receiving it gets to see it. What do you think about that method of play?

That's perfectly fine if that's how your group wants to play. Make the experience you enjoy.

What do you think of the kickstarter addition to Avalon with Excalibur and Lancelot? Do you think they are fair to both sides? I have played with both. I do not like excalibur all that much, but it does change the meta-game a lot and it can be fun. I really enjoy having Good Lancelot and Evil Lancelot. Have you played with these? What are your thoughts?

Here is the link to the kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2012515236/the-resistance-avalon

Your game is incredibly balanced and extremely well designed. My friends and I play this game almost every night. It has almost consumed my life (but I'm not complaining). Thank you so much for this amazing game!

I designed both Excalibur and the main concept (Variant #1) of Lancelot, and I'm very happy with their implementations. I think Excalibur is an excellent, simple tool for adding the potential for major game changing situations, and yes I think it's fair to both sides - especially since its use on missions is entirely optional.

I also enjoy Lancelot very much, though I usually prep myself for a more chaotic game when playing with them. And I have no problem with that - different variants are made to match different playing styles. In fact there are two extra variants for Lancelot (variants of Variant #1, my version), which help balance it more to taste. Here is the normal plus the two extras:

-Double Switch: Play the rules as written. (two possible switches)

-Single Switch: Remove one switch card. (one possible switch)

-Definite Switch: Remove a normal and a switch card. (one definite switch)

Depending what you take out, a lot of chaos can be removed while keeping a deal of fun uncertainty. But again, these are variants, and the method I enjoy most is the one written in the published rule book.

As for opinions Kickstarter wise, it would of course be lovely to have all possible cards in one easy-to-buy box, but at the same time Avalon is already crammed with variant goodness, and having a complicated rule book and too many cards can scare away new players. So overall, I'm satisfied.

And I'm glad you're having fun with the game. If you have more questions just let me know ;)

Hate to say it but Resistance is one of the worst games I've ever played. Some people call it Battlestar Galactica light, but no it's not near the same level as BSG imo

No worries. I've heard BSG is pretty sweet.