Dubious Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Dubious, published by Arcane Wonders. Dubious is a social deduction game where you are trying to sus out the occupations of your fellow players.

Do you ever feel miffed that you don’t know your friends’ occupations? I mean, come on, you and Fred have been buds for twelve years, but for all you know he could be a hairstylist or something! And rumor has it, he’s secretly allergic to pets! That’s right, Fred’s got a closet full of skeletons, and you’re going to find out what they are!

But you can’t just ask … no, that would be too easy. Instead, you and your friends will engage in an evening of intrigue, mystery and deception. The game is Dubious and for the next thirty minutes things are about to get real, as you and up to five other friends seek to uncover each other’s secrets, without revealing too many of your own.

To set up a game of Dubious, start by choosing a setting out of the three included in the box: Modern Day, Medieval, or Fantasy. Next, create a deck of five question cards and give each player two Occupation and two Secret cards, a player screen, pencil and a record sheet. Choose one of the secret and occupation cards to keep, then make note of the ones you rejected as that information will come in handy later, as you attempt to suss out your opponents’ identities. This is also a good time to determine how many rounds you want to play, as it’s up to the players to choose the game length.

One player will then flip the top card of the question deck and read it aloud. All players simultaneously write their own answers to the question, then read them aloud. This is repeated for a total of five questions. Finally, each player will take turns reading their answers to the questions one more time (feel free to also name your character and embellish as you like), after which everyone will take a guess at each other’s occupations and secrets. Each player will score one point per correct guess. The player being guessed will score a point for each