The Spin Doctors

The Spin Doctors is a game in which the players take on the role of the chief of staff and help their candidates in entering upon the highest office in the country.

The player, having a predetermined budget at their disposal, chooses appropriate campaign workers and uses their cards in each round to send them to different regions of the country with different tasks. Those could be an election rally, fundraising or an election trail. But they could also be a little less friendly forms of rivalry like incitement against political opponents, manipulation or propaganda. The player has to remember however, to plan these actions out carefully because all the campaign workers have their own distinct abilities, useful in specific situations, and only a limited number of them can carry out their tasks in each round. Moreover, the players have to predict the moves and the plans of their opponents, as the cards are placed on the board face down. They know where their opponents are sending their people, but they do not know which ones and with what tasks. They can also use their campaign workers to cooperate with the media, which can influence the turnout in several regions of the country as well as the topics important for the local communities. Additionally, the players must prepare an election program for their candidates and make sure that they fulfil as many promises as possible. Each mistake means a loss of votes and the risk of defeat.

Campaign workers’ actions influence the endorsement in each region and allow the candidates to earn endorsement points there. The one with the most endorsement points becomes the winner in the given region and gains votes from the local electorate which can represent one of 4 social groups.

The player with the most votes in all social groups at the end of the game wins the elections and becomes president. But remember that politics is often a brutal fight which doesn’t always encourage fair play, and media manipulation, provocation or leakage of compromising material are only a few of the challenges you will have to face. Everybody wants to win, and they will do anything to reach their goal.

Do you have the guts to grab for power?

—description from the publisher