Affliction: Salem 1692 is based on an abhorrent event in American history – the Salem Witch Trials. I was worried when we bought this game that it might make light of those events, or perhaps unduly mystify them, but I found that it does neither. Instead, it addresses the true nature of the Trials: various factions exploiting mass hysteria to accuse whoever dared oppose them.
To that end, each player starts the game with both a Faction and a Grievance card. Each Faction has a prominent family that they’re trying to influence into their Circle, and a family they’re trying to arrest, as well as why. Which factions are used in which game depends on the number of players. (Ex: the two-player minimum Salem Village was extremely fundamental in their Puritan beliefs, backed the Putnam family, and targeted the Proctors for their liberal views and financial success. There’s another Salem Village faction for when there’s more players, also backing the Putnams, but targeting the Porters for refusing to pay damages after flooding Village lands.) Unlike your Faction, your Grievance card is hidden, with three Colonists worth extra points if you arrest them, and one Colonist you’ll lose points for if they’re arrested at all.
Everyone also gets a Starting Colonist, but we didn’t realize those were separately marked until halfway through our first game, so the starting colonists in our pictures aren’t actually Starting Colonists. Whoops. Anyhow, the rest of the Starting Colonists are then shuffled back into the Colonist deck (not to be confused with the Prominent Colonist deck), six cards are removed and mixed with Mary Spencer Hill and Increase Mather, and those eight are placed at the very bottom. From the top of both Colonist decks, four cards are flipped face-up; you can tell which row are the Prominent Colonists, not only because the cards’ backs are different, but because their names are color-coded by family. Convenient, right?
Gameplay is a lot like Quetzal (which I’ve posted about here) in that players claim actions with Messenger meeples, one at a time, and then those actions are resolved by their order on the board. So what are the actions? Let’s go in order: first is Meet in Secret, which gains you one Influence Token and lets you place one Accusation Token on any Colonist; we’ll get to these later, but basically Influence is currency, and Accusations make arresting people cheaper. Second (well, third – there are two Meet In Secret spaces) is Exonerate, which lets you remove two Accusation Tokens from any one Colonist… or more tokens, if you’re willing to pay Influence for it. Also serving to protect your interest is – aptly named – the Protection Token, which you can place on any Colonist to protect them from arrest. This action also comes with the First Player Token, meaning next round, you’ll place the first Messenger! Both of these stay put until another action is used to move them.
Next up is Colonist Abilities & Generate Influence! This was definitely my most-claimed space throughout the game, not because it directly achieves victory points, but because it sets so much framework for them. Most straightforwardly, it gains you Influence tokens equal to the amount of Influence Icons on Colonists in your Circle, plus your Faction card for a minimum of 1. Colonist Abilities are a bit more complicated. Every Colonist has some special ability detailed under their illustration, but only some of them activate on this action, those being any with a hammer icon. Don’t worry, though! The reason the others don’t specifically activate now is because they have standing effects! For example, if Thomas Putnam is in your Circle he lets you place an additional Accusation Token whenever you’re accusing. Given that my not-so-Starting Colonist’s ability (action-activated) was to accuse someone… you can see why I liked this space.
Now where things get really interesting: Arrest A Colonist! A Colonist may only be arrested if they have at least one Accusation on them. The price of arresting someone is their Reputation value in Influence tokens, minus one per Accusation on them… hence why accusing is so useful! The exception to the price is if they’re already in someone else’s Circle, in which case there’s a +5 defense bonus to that there sum. All the Colonist’s tokens are cleared and they’re placed to the left of your Faction card in the “Arrested” area, where they’ll remain for the rest of the game. Following this, and closely related, is the Spectral Evidence action, which moves the corresponding green token onto any Colonist of your choice. Nearly the opposite of Protection, this token nixes the +5 defense bonus, the Colonist’s Influence Icon, and their character ability. Fear Tokens are the less potent, more abundant version of this: two Fear on a Colonist blocks their Influence generation, while three blocks their ability. It’s your choice whether you use this action to place two Fear (and gain two Influence) or to remove one.
The Accusations action is, effectively, both Meet in Secret spaces combined. You get two Influence Tokens and two Accusations (which don’t have to go to the same Colonist, by the way!) at the price of it being the second-to-last action in a round. The final action to resolve is the most important: bringing a Colonist into your Circle. Which is a lot like arresting someone, really, except Accusations don’t bring down the cost (you value their reputation, therefore, you pay full price) and they keep any tokens already on them at the time of their adoption. Also, you now have their abilities at your disposal! Plot wisely! But remember – you may not bring anyone into your Circle who’s marked as an opposing faction (T vs V), just like you can’t arrest members of the family you’re supposed to protect.
Once all Messengers are reclaimed from The Esteemed action board, the two rows of Colonists are refilled. First, shift remaining cards all the way to the right in the row, and if none of the bottom row (common Colonists) have been arrested or brought into a Circle, boot the one on the very end to the bottom of their deck. Then refill all empty spaces. If the Prominent Colonist deck runs out, refill from the normal Colonist deck before refilling the normal Colonist row. The privileged folk demand priority, even if they’re artificially inflating their relevance.
When either Mary Spencer Hill or Increase Mather is drawn, the game ends immediately. Points are tallied as follows: one for each Colonist in your Circle and each Colonist you’ve arrested, one for each Property Icon on Colonists you’ve arrested, two for each successful arrest or adoption of your target families, and then the conditions of your Grievance card as listed. As usual, whoever has the most points wins!
Affliction is especially interesting in that the very strategy that will lead you to victory will also leave you grimly appalled, because “people actually did this. And it got people killed.” It’s both an engaging strategy game and an effective way to emphasize the atrocity of what occurred in Salem, 1692.
