Saboteur Rules

Saboteur: A Hidden-Role Card Game of Dwarven Gold Digging

Saboteur is a captivating card game in which players are dwarves — either gold miners tunnelling ever deeper into the mountain in search of treasure, or saboteurs trying to put obstacles in the miners' path. The members of each group should work together, but often they can only guess who their allies are. Saboteur is suitable for 3 to 10 players and comes with 44 path cards, 27 action cards, 28 gold nugget cards, 7 gold miners and 4 saboteurs.

Objective

The goal of Saboteur is to collect as many gold nuggets as possible, either as a gold miner or a saboteur. The gold miners aim to reach the treasure, while the saboteurs aim to obstruct them. After three rounds, the dwarf with the most nuggets wins.

Setup

First, separate the cards into path, action, nugget, and dwarf cards. The number of gold miner and saboteur cards used depends on the number of players:

3 players: 1 saboteur and 3 gold miners
4 players: 1 saboteur and 4 gold miners
5 players: 2 saboteurs and 4 gold miners
6 players: 2 saboteurs and 5 gold miners
7 players: 3 saboteurs and 5 gold miners
8 players: 3 saboteurs and 6 gold miners
9 players: 3 saboteurs and 7 gold miners
10 players: all dwarf cards

Shuffle the required numbers of gold miner and saboteur cards together. Deal one card to each player, who looks at it and places it face down in front of him without revealing his role to the other players. The last card is set aside (also face down) until the end of the round.

Find the one start card (showing a ladder) and three goal cards (one with the gold treasure and two with mere stones) from among the 44 path cards. Shuffle the goal cards and place them face down on the table, together with the start card (face up), as shown in the illustration below. Over the course of the game, a maze of pathways will be created between the start card and the finish cards.

Add all the action cards to the remaining 40 path cards and shuffle to create one draw pile. Deal out a number of cards to each player, again depending on the number of players in the game:

3 to 5 players: Each player is dealt 6 cards.
6 to 7 players: Each player is dealt 5 cards.
8 to 10 players: Each player is dealt 4 cards.

Put the rest of the deck next to the goal cards. Shuffle the gold nugget cards and place them face down next to the leftover dwarf card.

How to Play

On his turn, a player must first play 1 card. This means either:

Add 1 path card to the maze; or
Place 1 action card in front of any player; or
Pass, by putting 1 card face down on the discard pile.

Then, the player must draw the top card off the path deck and add it to his hand. This ends his turn, and play passes to the next player. When the draw deck is used up, players no longer draw — a turn then consists only of playing a card.

Path Cards and Action Cards

Path cards can only be played by connecting to a path card already on the table (including the start card). All paths on the sides of the new card must fit the cards already in play, they can never be played crosswise, and a newly placed path card must always have an uninterrupted connection to the start card.

Action cards are always played face up in front of a player, yourself or another:

Broken tools: while such a card sits in front of a player, he may not play any path cards — he may still play other cards. Only one card of each type can be in front of a given player at a time.
Fix tools: removes a broken tool card from in front of a player; both cards go to the discard pile. The repair must match the type of broken tool, and repair cards showing 2 tools fix either one, not both.
Rockfall: the player takes 1 path card of his choice out of the maze (except the start and goal cards) and discards it along with the rockfall card. The gap can be filled again on a later turn.
Map: the player secretly looks at one of the three goal cards, puts it back in place and discards the map, learning whether that goal is worth digging towards.

Scoring and End of Game

If a player plays a path card that touches a goal card and creates an uninterrupted path from the start card to that goal card, he must turn that goal card over:

If it is the treasure card, the round is over!
If it is a stone, the round continues. The face up goal card is placed next to the last path card played so that the paths fit.

The round also ends if the draw deck runs out of cards and no player has any playable cards left in hand. When the round ends, all dwarf cards are turned over: Who was a gold miner, and who's a saboteur?

The gold miners win the round if there is an uninterrupted path from the start card to the goal card that shows the treasure. If they do, the player who played the last path card (that connected to the treasure) draws a number of gold nugget cards (face down) equal to the number of gold miners (e.g., 5 cards if there were 5 gold-diggers), looks at them in secret, and chooses 1 card to keep. Then, he passes the rest of gold nugget cards counter-clockwise to the next gold miner (not saboteur!), who also chooses 1 card and passes the rest-and so on until each gold miner gets 1 card.

The saboteurs have won the round if the goal card with the treasure wasn't reached. If there was only 1 saboteur, he gets gold nugget cards from the deck worth a total of four nuggets. If there were 2 or 3 saboteurs, they each get 3 nuggets worth of gold. If there were 4 saboteurs, each gets 2 nuggets.

All players keep their gold nugget cards secret until the end of the game!

Variants and Spin-offs

Note that in a game with 3 or 4 players it is possible that no saboteur is dealt in a round — in that case, if the treasure is not reached, none of the dwarves get any gold nuggets. Beyond the base game, Saboteur has been followed by several spin-offs, including Saboteur 2, Saboteur: Cave-In! and Saboteur: The Duel, plus a set of published rule variants.

A Bit of History

Saboteur has become a fixture of card-game nights thanks to its blend of cooperation and hidden betrayal, and has been reprinted many times and extended with several stand-alone spin-offs. The rules consulted here do not state the exact date or publisher of its first edition.

Where to Get the Game saboteur card game on Amazon

Beginner Mistakes to Avoid

Forgetting to draw a card after playing: Make sure to always draw a card after playing to ensure you have cards for future turns.
Not paying attention to action cards: Action cards can significantly impact the game, so be sure to read and understand them before playing.
Neglecting to pass gold nuggets: Remember to pass the remaining gold nuggets to the next gold miner after choosing your own.

FAQ

How many players does Saboteur support? From 3 to 10 players, with the number of saboteurs and gold miners set by the player count.
Can players communicate during the game? Nothing forbids table talk, but roles stay hidden until the end of the round, and every player keeps his gold nugget cards secret until the end of the game.
What happens if a player runs out of cards? Towards the end of a round some players may have no cards left in hand — in that case they simply pass, without discarding anything.
Can players use action cards to help each other? Yes. Action cards can hinder or help: fix-tool cards repair another player, and a rockfall can clear a dead end as easily as it can cut a path.
How long does a game last? A game is played over three rounds, after which the dwarf with the most nuggets wins.

Similar games