The ultimate SECRET HITLER guide

One of the (currently) most popular games/mods played on TTS, but doesn't yet have an own guide?
Let's fix that: This guide is designed in an iterative manner, first giving a brief overview over the rules, then explaining the usual basic plays, followed by a section about advanced plays for either side, and closing with a list of really difficult, complex or risky moves.

Introduction and Rules

For the basic rules, I strongly recommend new players to start up TTS in singleplayer mode, load up the Secret Hitler game and then check out the Notebook. It contains the full set of rules, and being in the game environment means you can check the objects mentioned in the rules right away.

For those somewhat familiar with the rules (i.e. due to having watched gameplay of this on YT or other media), here's a VERY brief rundown, that skips a lot of specific details:

• Every player belongs to either the Liberals or the Fascists. There is always more Liberals then Fascists and there is always one Hitler amongst the Fascists. Only the Fascists know who everyone else is, Hitler and the Liberals don't.
  
• The Liberals win by passing 5 blue policies or by killing Hitler.
  
• The Fascists win by passing 6 red policies or if Hitler is made Chancellor at any point after 3 red policies are already in play.
  
• Each turn, the current President Candidate decides whom he wants to make Chancellor. Then all players vote. If the vote fails or ties, the next player becomes President Candidate.
  
• Once a vote succeeded, the President draws 3 policy cards, discards 1 and hands the other 2 to his Chancellor. The Chancellor then discards another 1 and plays the last 1 open onto the respective board.
  
• If a Fascists policy was passed, the President may gain a special power, as depicted on the board.

Basic Gameplay - Everyone

This section will now go over the basic gameplay, what your role is usually supposed to do, and to avoid being banned for ruining the game. Then again, if you already know how the game works and are just looking for in-depth advice, feel free to skip over this section, as it's still aimed at new players.

There is a number of important rules that can break the game if ignored, and will very likely get you banned, if you break them.

• At the start of the game, the Secret Role cards are placed upon the table, for the Fascists to secretly check them whilst everyone is blindfolded. Do not take off your blindfold if you are not a Fascists (or Hitler in a 5-6 player game), unless the host/moderator tells you to.
  
• After that point, NEVER reveal your Secret Role card, unless you are Hitler and either being shot or made Chancellor after 3 red cards have been passed (or the game ended). You may claim to have any role card you like, lie about it and so on. But you must not reveal it. If investigated, you must hand over your Party Membership card, but never your role one (this means Investigations will only identify Hitler as a Fascist, but not whether he is Hitler).
  
• If there are 3 Fascists policies in play and you are made Chancellor, or you are being shot, you must answer truthfully whether you are Hitler. If you are Hitler, reveal your role card, if not, state that you are not Hitler, WITHOUT revealing your role card.
  
• When President or Chancellor, once the first three cards have been drawn, you may not talk or make any noises or indications of what has been drawn. As well, you must not discard cards face-up, or hand them to the chancellor face-up. Likewise, simply shuffling the three cards and discarding one at random (regardless of whether you looked at them or not) is against the rules.

Basic Gameplay - Liberals

As a Liberal player, you are supposed to pass Liberal policies whenever possible and assist the table in figuring out the identity of the Fascists, or even better; Hitler.
Initially, everyone playing will claim that they are Liberal, meaning that you will be left with a lot of other people of whom nearly the half is already lieing. Therefore, it's always advised to be on the watch for signs of Fascists play.

However, it's just as important to not just vote 'Nein!' on everything, simply because you do not trust anyone. Doing so will prevent the game from progressing, and will, at best, get you suspected, at worst, give the Fascists free policies by topdecking (if 3 presidential votes fail, the top card of the policy deck is played, since there are far more red then blue cards in the deck, this is an advantage for the Fascists).
Ideally, vote "Ja!" unless you found a reason to distrust either the President Candidate or his Chancellor, and always explain your "Nein!" votes if somebody asks.

If it's your turn to be President, think properly about whom you want as a Chancellor. Pick someone you trust, or someone you want to 'test' (as in, someone who didn't get to do anything this game). You cannot make the previous President or Chancellor your current Chancellor. As well, it's frowned upon to make the person to your left the Chancellor, as that person is going to be President the next turn, too, effectively giving him two consecutive turns of 'power'. This is referred to as 'powerplay' and usually makes you look suspicious, unless the mentioned person is exceptionally trusted amongst the Liberals.

When drawing your policy cards, you will always want to pass on at least one blue policy, in order for your chancellor to be able to actually enact it. However, it's entirely legitimate to pass on a red and a blue card, even if you had two blue cards: Passing two blue cards would force the Chancellor to play a blue card, but this means you wouldn't gain any information about it. If you pass a blue and a red card and the chancellor plays the blue one, you gain the information that the Chancellor is more likely to be a Liberal, since a Fascists might would have tried to play the red policy and then lied about being passed 2 red policys.
In case of you drawing 3 red or 3 blue cards, you obviously don't have much of a choice.
In any case, after the Chancellor played his policy, you should announce which 3 cards you drew initially, and have the Chancellor confirm your side of the story (or alternatively, the Chancellor tends to speak up first about which 2 cards he got, and then you in turn confirm what he said and mention what the third card was).

As an elected Chancellor, you will simply be handed 2 policy cards, without any knowledge as to what the 3rd might have been. As Liberal, you will always want to play a blue policy card, unless forced to play red by getting 2 red policy cards.
Playing a red policy, as a liberal, whilst being given the choice between one of either, is a VERY bad idea, will make you look like a Fascists, and eventually get you banned at the end of the game if people realize you are actually a Liberal. Even if you trust the president and 'want to give him a Fascists power', don't do it. Due to the ratio between blue and red policies, there is never a case where Liberals would need a Fascists power more then simply getting another Liberal policy on the board.

Regardless of whether you are President or Chancellor, it's very well possible for your respective other government member to suddenly double-cross you. It could be that you hand your Chancellor a red and a blue card, he then plays a red and proclaims he was handed 2 reds. Or it could be you get handed 2 reds by the president, play one of them and then the president claims you are a Fascists because he allegedly gave you a red and a blue card.
In this situation, immediatly and loudly voice your disagreement, explain what cards you were given/handed over and proclaim the other person a liar. In most, if not all cases, the other person is a Fascists who now is trying to frame you.
This is a common situation, called a 'conflict', implying that there is two players who claim the respective other one to be lieing. The usual problem is that noone actually knows who of the two is lieing. Except the Fascists, who know which of the two in conflict is a Fascists and likely the liar, and will therefore support him in subtle ways to make the Liberal appear like the liar.
In any case, the common consensus on conflicts is that a conflict always implies there to be AT LEAST one Fascists involved. For this reason, you should always consider people in conflicts to be not-trustworthy and avoid giving them a President or Chancellor position.
(Needless to say, as a Liberal, never instigate a conflict by making up a lie about the cards you have been given. Creating a conflict with two Liberals involved is very likely to make you lose the game and can get you kicked from the table for trolling your team.)

As an outside who is not in the current government, take note of the policy being played. If a blue policy is played, all is good and both the government members can be considered somewhat more trustworthy (unless the Chancellor 'wasnt given a choice' by getting two blue cards, in this case nothing is revealed about his role, at all).
However, if a red card is played, this is always reason for suspicion. In a few cases, either side of the government may instigate a conflict over the card just played, but in most cases, the Chancellor will claim to have been given 2 red cards and the President will claim to have gotten 3 red cards (> 'I didn't have a choice').
This can now mean one of three situations:

• The President is a Liberal, but he simply had the badluck to draw 3 red cards.
  
• The President is a Fascists/Hitler and discarded a blue card, handing 2 reds to his Chancellor andthen feigning innocence.
  
• The President AND the Chancellor are Fascist and they discarded 1 or 2 blue cards. This can be troubling if the President is Hitler, gave a choice to his Chancellor, just to see hsi Chancellor 'revealing' himself as Fascist, as this is a big information gain for Hitler.

Therefore, whenever a red card is played, this makes both the Chancellor, but especially the President, less trustworthy.
And this alone can be reason enough to avoid voting someone into any position, if he has previously been involved in a played red card, as a president, and instead prefer people who have already played blue cards.

Lastly, one word about Presidential powers:
As with above situations, make judgement calls about whom you (dis)trust the most, when handing out either a lethal bullet or a presidental title.
For the Investigation power, consider whom you are the most uncertain about, or who is in a conflict. After seeing his respective Party card, tell everyone the truth about it. As a Liberal, there is zero reason to ever cover for a Fascist, or lie about a fellow Liberal.
Obviously, accusing soeone of being a Fascist will look you into a conflict with them (as they will claim you are a Fascist who lied about their Liberal party card), but conflicts usually tend to be in favour of Liberals, simply because removing one Liberal and one Fascist player 'from the active game' will tilt the ratio of players even further in Liberal's favour.

Basic Gameplay - Fascist

As a Fascist, you are at a disadvantage for numbers and an advantage for information: There are more Liberal players then you, but you know exactly who everyone is.
You have four main duties:

• Secretly enact red policies, by hiding away blue policy cards as a president.
  
• Subtly, or through playing blue cards with him, make Hitler a trusted member amongst the Liberals.
  
• Again, subtly, disrupt the Liberals trust in each other, gain trust yourself, have trust be given to your teamamtes, or simply 'throw someone under the bus' by going into a conflict with him.
  
• If possible, play in a way that will make Hitler become aware of you being a Fascist, yet without alerting anyone else.

Let's elaborate those points in detail:
The most obvious course of action for a Fascist player is to play Fascist cards, in a way that will not make people scream 'FASCISTS' right away. The best position for that is President. You drew 2 reds and 1 blue? Great, discard the blue, hand over 2 reds, then proclaim you had 3 reds and no choice. Obviously this will make you look somewhat suspicious, but it puts a red card on the board and maybe nets you a presidential power. And keep in mind that this is, together with Liberals drawing 3 reds, the only reliable way to pass Fascists policys. If you don't use your position here to push red cards, then expect to lose by too many blue cards being passed.
The more risky approach would be to discard blue as a Chancellor. However, if you're given a blue and a red, discard the blue, play the red, EXPECT the President to call you out on it. Defend yourself, proclaim innocence and that you had no choice and were given 2 red cards by the evil Fascist president. In any case, you will be in a conflict. And be warned that, even with the advantage of playing a red card, you have now given a presidential power (if there was one, if not, good work) to a Liberal.
It's important to NEVER create a conflict with a fellow Fascist, or worse, Hitler. Doing so will prevent you both from getting government positions, and will likely result in a stream of blue cards being played and filling up the Liberal board.

Hitler is a special exception to most said above: Usually, Hitler will try to blend in amongst Liberals and (at least early on), prefer playing blue cards over red, even if given the choice as President to silently discard a blue. The reason is that, towards round 6 and later, it is, regardless of the two sides efforts, very likely that at least 3 red policys will have been played. And at this point, a Hitler who is trusted amongst the Liberals might simply win the game for the Fascist side by being made Chancellor.
Accordingly, if you make Hitler your Chancellor early on, consider giving him a blue as choice, just so he can gather trust.
Alternatively, if you are Hitler's Chancellor, and are given a choice, you can now have a tough decision: Either you play blue to reinforce the Liberal's trust in him, or you play red, which will make Hitler aware that you are a Fascist, but as well make everyone slightly suspicious about him. I would usually recommend to go with latter approach, as Hitler knowing a teammate is a really big valuable information, and another Fascist card on the table is always nice to see.

Now, for the bigged Fascist play you have avaible at most times: 'Throwing people under the bus'.
Effectively what you do is to simply create a conflict out of thin air, targeted at a Liberal, or preferably a somewhat trusted Liberal, with the intention of removing both him and yourself from the game, in order to increase the chances of Hitler being made Chancellor later in the game.
To do so, simply employ a red card as mentioned in the first paragraph.
Or, even better, use the Investigative Power on someone Liberal, and proclaim to have just found a Fascist. This is usually a safer way to do it, as people are more inclined to believe you to be a Liberal who 'randomly found' a Fascist, opposed to being a Liberal who was allegedly double-crossed into playing a red card (as those inherently create distrust).
In any case, the obvious downside of this is that technically you make the ratio of Liberals to Fascists worse by removing yourself and a Liberal from the election game. And doing this very early on can have really bad consequences, i.e. Liberals being able to pass a lot of blue cards in a row.
On the other hand, doing this in a game where Hitler is trusted and you can be certain that the 3rd Red is going to be played very soon (i.e. because you know the other Fascist player is going to be President soon, and would likely push a red card), this can be a great move to increase the odds of Hitler winning by becoming Chancellor.

Basic Gameplay - Hitler

Congratulations, you are the most important, most hated and certainly most difficult-to-play-as role in the game.

You start on the Fascist side, being outnumbered, and (unless in a 5-6 player game, where you are outnumbered even worse) don't even know who your teammates are.

Opposed to Fascists, whose main job is to pass Fascist reforms and get into conflicts, as Hitler, you must AVOID conflicts at all costs. Being in a conflict means not being made Chancellor or President. And you not being made Chancellor means it's very likely for the Liberals to win the game.
Likewise, you may want to hold back on pushing red policies as a President, simply because doing so could create distrust towards you. Then again, the most common Hitler playstyle is 'Liberal Hitler'. Thus, NOT playing a liberal card might make people distrust you right now, but will make them not suspect you of being Hitler (but a Fascist).

An important part of being Hitler is to figure out who your Fascists are. Usually you will have to rely on the same informations as the Liberals, which means guessing when a red card is played, but occasionally you will have the situation where you hand your Chancellor 1 of each, and he plays red. Make sure to lie and asssit your new-found Fascist teammate by saying you actually gave him 2 reds and drew 3 reds initially.
This is another reason to not force 2 reds as a Hitler. Just throw out the choice and either be deemed a liberal for playing a liberal card, or find a Fascist whilst getting a red card being played.

The most difficult part of being Hitler is to become Chancellor, without making it apparent that you want to become Chancellor, after 3 red policies are in play.
If the reds are on the board, someone is President and unsure whom to make Chancellor, saying 'I think you should make me Chancellor' is a great way to be labelled as Hitler right away. The better play here is to sum up everyone who appears trustworthy, preferably 1 or 2 people, and then add yourself to that, without explicitely recommending for you to be chosen. This works even better when the President inherently trusts you. Hearing you say that 'Red, Blue and me' are good choices might make them pick you just because you didn't explicitely ask for the Chancellor title.
Alternatively, if one of your Fascist teammates has a lot of trust (or better, is the president), he might just suggest you to be made Chancellor (hopefully in a less 'I'M A FASCIST THAT IS HITLER, MAKE HIM CHANCELLOR'-obvious fashion). Or in case of president, makes you a Chancellor, which usually works best if you are suggested to be Chancellor by any other Liberal player, so the Fascist President can simply go 'Okay, if you think so...'.

One last word of advice: As Hitler, do NOT protect Fascists.
If you figure out one of your Fascist teammates, and he screws up, goes into a conflict or is under heavy suspicion for any reason, do NOT go ahead and say in the open that you trust him or think he is innocent. At the very least, whoever he is in a conflict with will become extremely suspicious at you. At worst, the entire Liberal party will think of you as a Fascist.
It is not your job to protect your teammates. It's your teammates job to protect you. Do not have any remorse and just 'throw them under the bus' if they are under suspicion, point out why they are suspicious or just generally play a goody-two-shoes Liberal.
In some games with an early conflict, it might even be worth getting the Investigative Power, throwing it at the Fascist already in conflict and then proclaiming he is indeed Fascist. At the very least the Liberal guy in the conflict will now trust you entirely, at best the entire table will agree that whoever you investigated must be Fascist, and therefore you can't be Fascist, because Fascsits wouldn't sell each other out.
Or do they..?

Advanced Gameplay - Card Counting [L/f]

In the following sections, I'll go over several 'advanced' concepts of the game. If you're a new player, it's strongly recommended to read the Basic Gameplay sections first and/or play a few roudns.

Some casinos will call it illegal, some people consider it a high art, some call it magic.
In any case, Card Counting IS a thing in Secret Hitler. Especially since the card deck we are talking about barely contains 17 cards.

Effectively, Card Counting is about keeping track of all blue cards played on the board, allegedly discarded, possibly discarded by Fascists and remaining in the deck to be drawn. Naturally, doing this requires observation, knowledge of the usual way both teams play and some basic math skills to guesstimate probabilities.
Note that Card Counting is more or less a Liberal tool, simply because the Liberals will try to use Card Counting to figure out who the Fascists are, which Fascsits in turn don't even have to do. Albeit even them can profit from knowing when lieing is the, by math, most likely and thus trustworthy option.

Initially, there are 6 Liberal and 11 Fascist cards in the deck. This means, on average, every 3 drawn cards contain 1 Liberal.
However, this 'average' quickly shifts if there are Liberal cards already played on the board, or someones says they discarded a Liberal due to drawing 2 (or more) as a President.
Whilst you could count cards in your head, usually this won't work unless you are some sort of expert or genius. Simply writing the cards down on a piece of paper is sufficient (and since it's impossible in TTS to actually check whether someone does that, the general consensus is that it is not cheating). If you want to be especially fair, polite, or simply are a Liberal to begin with, you could as well make those notes in the 'note' section of the TTS board instead, for everyone to see.
There's a number of different ways of writing the count down, but my usualy form is:

White - Green: FFF [F]
Red - Blue: LFL [L]
Orange - Purple: FFL/FFF [F]

The first color is the player who was President, the second the Chancellor. This is followed by three letters for the cards the Presidents claimed to have drawn (F for Fascist, L for Liberal. If possible, put the '3rd' card the President discarded as first letter), followed by a 4th letter in [], which implies the card that was actually played.
In the 3rd line, you can see my way of noting a conflict, with the first sequence of letters being what the President claimed to have gotten, and the latter sequence being the Chancellors claim.
(In this case, Chancellor played a red card, claiming that he was given 2 reds and didn't have a choice. President however claims that he gave his Chancellor 1 red and 1 blue card. This is a conflict in which one of the two is lieing and therefore a Fascist).

As an example, we will now take a look at the following sequence:

White - Green: FFL [L]
Red - Blue: FFF [F]
Orange - Purple: LFL [L]
Yellow - Pink: FFF [F]
White - Orange: FFL [L]
Shuffle
Red - Blue: ...

Keep in mind that there is a total of 17 cards, 6 of them being Liberal.
As we can see from our notes, during the first 5 turns, a total of 15 cards were being drawn. Which means 2 remained in the deck.
Now, a quick count reveals that only 4 Liberal cards have been, allegedly, drawn. This would imply that the 2 remaining cards in the deck are both Liberal. (And no, there is no way to check, since the deck will be reshuffled with the discard pile before the next cards are draw, indicated by the 'Shuffle' line.)
The odds that amongst 15 drawn cards, only 4 were Liberal, is a tad on the low side. Therefore we can deduce that there should have been at least 1, or maybe 2, more Liberals in the count. Which again implies that one of the FFF [F] lines is a lie, with either Red or Yellow secretly discarding a Liberal card as a Fascist.

Technically, this doesn't give us much more new information, since I already explained in the earlier sections that a President claiming to have gotten 3 red policies is to be seen with distrust. However, with card counting, you can now 'for sure' say that either Red is a Fascist, Yellow is a Fascist, or RNGesus really likes to play pranks (as in, the statistically unlikely case that actually everyone was honest and the 2 cards in the deck ARE the 2 liberal cards). Whilst not as explicit, you could consider this a 'conflict' between Red and Yellow, since both are claiming to have gotten 3 red cards, but likely one of the two is lieing.

To provide an alternative example, with the opposite result, let's look at this sequence:

White - Green: FFL [L]
Red - Blue: LFL [L]
Orange - Purple: LFL [L]
Yellow - Pink: FFF [F]
White - Orange: FFL [L]
Shuffle
Red - Blue: ...

Only the second line changed, but now we actually have 6 Liberal cards in the count. This can mean that either 'everyone said the truth' or 'one Fascist hid a blue and another Fascist hid a red' (I.e. maybe White actually had 2 blues and 1 red, whilst Yellow had 2 reds and 1 blue). However, latter wouldn't actually give the Fascist much of an advantage and is near impossible to actually detect by Card Counting. Therefore, it's better to assume that actually everyone said the truth.
The result? You have no reason to distrust Yellow anymore, despite playing a red policy, simply because it's statistically much more likely now that he actually got 3 reds. This doesn't make him trustworthy, because he could as well be a Fascsit who randomly got 3 reds, but it removes the suspicion (which might prove beneficial in case he's an actual Liberal).

And lastly, the funny result when Fascist try to be to smart:

White - Green: LLL [L]
Red - Blue: LFL [L]
Orange - Purple: LFL [L]
Yellow - Pink: FFF [F]
White - Orange: FFF [F]
Shuffle
Red - Blue: ...

Whoops, now we ended up with 7 Liberal cards. This means that either White, Red or Orange lied about their discarded 3rd card (assuming Green confirms that he indeed got 2 blue cards from White).
Now, why would a Fascist do that, you might ask.
The reason is to set up the stage for another Fascist further down the line. As mentioned in the paragraph above, if the count sums up to 5 or 6 liberal cards, it's likely that noone lied. If now a Fascist early on claims to have had more blues then he actually did (usually turning a FFL into LFL), this means there will be less suspicion on whoever, as a Fascist, turns a LFF into a FFF (as in, discards a blue card as president, then claims to have had 3 reds).
Obviously, the upside of trying to 'sneak in' blue cards into the card count is to relieve suspicion on other Fascists, but as you can see in above example, this can go really wrong if noone actually 'hides' a blue card and instead all 6 blue cards make an appearance, causing even more suspicion for those presidents who claim to have discarded a blue.

As a last note, once the deck was shuffled, effectively the entire Card Count starts again, albeit this time with a different deck setup, depending on how many cards have been played. I.e. if there are 3 blue and 2 red cards on the board, this obviously means the deck now contains 3 blue and 9 red cards.
The downside of the 'second phase' is that, usually, the odds to get red cards will be much higher (i.e. 3:9 = 1:3, opposed to the initial 6:11 ~= 1:2), making it harder for the Liberals to pass more reforms. The upside, however, if the game actually lasts the 4 more turns to the next shuffle, you will end up with an EMPTY deck pile (12-3*4=0), which means that your card count will contain all cards that have been in the game, making it much harder for Fascists to hide a blue (since they can't claim it to be left in the '2 cards of the remaining deck').
However, since games rarely last for 9 turns, you can usually consider Card Counting an 'early game' tool.

Advanced Gameplay - Skipping/Triangle [L]

Another weapon in the Liberal arsenal, is 'Skipping' or also referred to as 'Triangle play'. The concept is to pile up an immense spike of powerplay in favour of the liberals in the late game (often if 4 Liberal policies have already been passed).

The concept is the following:
Three Liberal players, who all trust each other fully, decide to exclusively support elections that put themselves into power, effectively trying to create a chain of power play, where the previous Chancellor becomes the new President and then goes and picks the 3rd guy as Chancellor. Who then becomes the next President and picks the initial President as Chancellor, and so on.

Effectively, this causes Liberals to cycle through the deck at a high speed, with a guarantuee to play any blue card they find, whilst using the veto to prevent themselves from losing in case they draw 3 reds. All whilst avoiding Hitler as well.

Of course, that sounds much easier then it is, for the following reasons:

• First of all, it requires the three participiating players to be in a roughly triangular positioning, with no more then 2 players in between two triangle players (as otherwise it would be impossible to 'skip' the elections over to the next triangle player).
  
• It takes three people who completely trust each other AND are aware of the Triangle play concept.
  
• The other liberals must as well agree to the Triangle play and therefore fully trust and support the Triangle players (as otherwise the Fascists plus just a single Liberal can break the chain by voting no, causing a topdeck). And usually Liberals do not like being skipped over entirely in favour of someone else they might not trust.
  
• There must not be any Fascist hiding amongst the three Triangle players (or worse, a Hitler). Therefore, usually this is a late game emergency gamble, that centers around whoever helped pass the 4th liberal reform (as it is VERY unlikely for a Fascist to ever help passing that step, not even a Liberal Hitler).

As you can see, this play is as simple, as it is effective, as it is risky and as it is hard to pull off. But if it's pulled off, it effectively guarantuess a Liberal victory (if the Triangle is indeed formed by 3 Liberal players).

As another note, this tactic is mainly designed for 7-8 player rounds. With less players, it's usually hard to have a triangle not containing a Fascisst and in 9-10 player rounds (assuming you play this outside of TTS), you simply will have more then 2 players in between each triangle corner, forcing you to expand the whole tactic into a quare (which again increases the chances for the square to contain a Facist, immensely).

Advanced Gameplay - Gunpoint [L]

One of the, if not THE, biggest challenge in the game, for Liberals, is to avoid making Hitler Chancellor. Only very few Fascist wins happen with 6 Fascist policy cards.
Of course, once you are in 'Hitler Zone' (common term used when describing a game situation where there are 3 or more Fascist policy cards on the board) you will have gathered some information about the other players and maybe even gotten a conflict... But the big issue is that the most 'safe' playstyle as Hitler is the 'liberal Hitler': If Hitler plays EXACTLY like a Liberal would in the early game, it is near impossible to tell which of the 'trusted Liberals' might actually be Hitler instead. It doesnt matter how many Liberal policys who has passed, if a single wrongly picked Chancellor causes the Facsits to win.
This issue is most prominent during the 2 turns after entering Hitler Zone, and becomes slightly less of an issue afterwards, as 'Is not Hitler (confirmed)' cards will be showing up, marking players as 'safe' Chancellors.

Now, 'Gunpoint' is the other side of the coin and a Liberal play to counter Hitler Zone.
The requirements to play a Gunpoint maneuver are

• There are exactly 3 Fascist policies passed (technically this works with 4, too, but carries a much higher risk).
  
• You (or a Liberal player you fully trust) must be President (in 7-8 player games, this position is decided by whoever played the 3rd red card as President, making it a valuable power).
  
• There must be an on-going conflict.
  
• The current President Candidate (you) must be well-trusted.
  
• You must be playing in a round of competent players.

Why the latter requirement? Because you are going to suggest something that new players (and all Fascists in the table) will instantly yell 'YOU ARE A FASCIST' at:
You suggest to give Chancellorship to someone in a conflict.
Usually, you never let anyone in a conflict have Presidency or Chancellorship, simply because they got a 50:50 chance of being Fascists.
BUT, it's exactly because of that: Fascists enter conflicts to bind players and make it more likely for Hitler to become Chancellor. Hitler would never willingly initiate a conflict.
This means, even if it's a fair chance that you are giving Chancellor to a Fascist, you can be VERY certain you are not giving it to Hitler.
Of course, keep in mind following exception: If the conflict was created by the Investigative Power, do NEVER try a Gunpoint with the 'investigated' player. He might just be Hitler who got investigated by a Liberal. You can always use Gunpoint on the player who did the investigation, though.

Now, here is what you should now proceed to explain to the table, to make them agree on your brilliant idea:
You give Chancellor to the person in conflict. It is near impossible for said person to be Hitler, thus it will not cause a loss for the Liberals.
If you then draw 3 reds, it didn'T matter in first place whom you chose, because you will be forced to play red. But at least you didn't pick someone trustworthy who would now be suspected for playing a red card.
If you draw 2 reds and 1 blue, you give your victim the choice. If the victim is a Liberal, he will play the blue card, no doubt. Which means you just plainly played a blue card, with no risk of Hitler, whilst in Hitler Zone.
If your victim is a Fascist, he can either play a blue card for the same effect... or decide to play the red card, which gives you an execution power to instantly shoot him (that's why the whole play is called 'gunpoint').
If you draw 2 or even 3 blue, you can simply force your victim to play blue with no risk involved whatsoever.

The result of this play will either be a safe, blue card, a 'doesnt matter because it were 3 reds to begin with' or a dead Fascist, which will as well have the bonus of resolving the conflict, freeing another Liberal player to rejoin the active game.

Of course, this play as well carries a big problem:
Other players (especially Fascists) could now proclaim that actually YOU are the Fascist, gave a Liberal player 2 reds and then shot them, in order to aid your Fascist teammate in the conflict.
However, since this downside only takes effect when a Fascist actually decides to rather take the bullet then playing a blue, which is rare in and on itself, you can still, for yourself, be certain that you just shot a Fascist and now have confirmation that the other player in the conflict is Liberal as well. Even if noone believes you anymore.

Advanced Gameplay - Fishing for Hitler (L)

Courtesy of: Roscoe The Lib

A common Fascist tactic to signal their hitler (assuming table position and card draw allows) is to pass hitler 2 liberal cards as your early game chancellor and as he plays it proclaim he had a choice before he speaks. A smart hitler will pick up on this being his fascist ally lying and agree that a choice was given when in reality he was forced 2 liberal cards.

Here is where "fishing" comes into play as a liberal. Constantly drawing 2 liberal cards as president can be annoying. I find myself accused of being sketchy if I force 2 liberals or if I discard a liberal and give a choice - a lose/lose. Instead I now usually force the 2 liberals and proclaim that I gave my chancellor a choice once one is played. If he bites on the signal - I proclaim to the table that I lied and I've just found hitler who took the bait. If he corrects me then he is obviously not hitler.

Advanced Gameplay - Framing with Friendship [F]

This is a Fascist tactic, designed to maximize distrust amongst Liberals, even without anyone actually trusting YOU in first place. It sounds pretty obvious at first, but doing it proper can lead even the most competent players astray and thoroughly tilt a game in the Fascists favour.

Effectively, what you do is: Draw suspicion.
Preferably, whilst doing something useful, like passing multiple red policies and/or dragging someone into a conflict.

From that position, now start to openly, yet subtly, support one specific other player, whom you know to be Liberal, but who has preferably not been involved too much into cards being played (a perfect target is someone who only ever played one blue card very early in the game) and is not a veteran player (who will instantly realize you're pulling a frame and call you out on it).
Whenever the question of whom to make Chancellor comes up, proceed to repeat that 'X is a Fascist' (with X being the person you are in conflict with) and 'Y and Z seem trustworthy'. Then in the next round, say 'X is a Fascist, but I think Z and A are trustworthy'. Or simply point out someone who cannot even be chosen since he was part of the last government, and, again, Z (who, if you didn't get it yet, is your framing target).
Over short or long, X will complain about your accusations and point out that you are supporting Z, which totally means that Z must be Fascist or even worse, Hitler. Or maybe this idea comes from a different side. Heck, maybe even Hitler himself, if he realizes what you are playing at.

If you did it right, by constantly poking attention at Z, but without ever being too obnoxiously obvious that you are trying to FRAME Z, at some point the Liberals will simply refuse to make Z Chancellor during Hitler Zone, because it seems likely for him to be Hitler.
Voila, one less option for the Liberals to make Chancellor, increasing the chances for Hitler to win the game.

Of course, this play isn't without risks either. Most obviously, if you are playing with veteran players, they might just ignore whatever you say 'because you're in a conflict'. Or alternatively, they will start to agree with your suggestion, just to go 'nope, actually I'm pretty sure Z is a Liberal being framed' and double-crossing you in an important vote.
Or you just overplay the part and even new players become aware that you are obviously trying to frame Z, which will not only make him more trustworthy, but as well will tilt the conflict into the Liberal favour, marking you as a Fascist for good.

Advanced Gameplay - Ballsy Hitler [F]

An advanced strategy that can be employed by Hitler alone, often for hilarious turn-arounds, is called 'Ballsy Hitler' or 'Risky Hitler' or simply 'Fascist Hitler'.
Effectively, what you do is, as Hitler, to play a 'shallow Fascist' game. That means, you play like a normal Fascist would do, without drawing any massive attention by creating conflicts. This mostly means you simply push for 2 red cards as a President.

This will usually get you some suspicion early on and prevent you from gaining any elections in the next few rounds, HOWEVER, since most Hitlers preferal to 'play Liberal Hitler', whilst people might suspect you to be a Fascist, they are actually less likely to think you are Hitler.

If now your Fascist allies realize what you're doing, they might decide to instigate as many conflicts as possible, in order to force a situation where a President cannot chose his trusted players (since they were in the previous government), yet doesn't want to pick another 'liberally perceived' player, because that's what a 'Liberal Hitler' would play like and instead foes for you, as a 'possibly Fascist', even putting you under a quasi-Gunpoint 'because there is no way Hitler would play red cards that early'.
Voila, you just won the game by acting like a Fascist.

Of course, it isn't always that easy.
The big problem is, you are dependant on a President candidate running out of Options for his Chancellor. Which again can only happen if your Fascists actually go into conflicts, managed to discredit enough Liberals and aren't just sitting in their corner being distrusted by everyone.
As well, depending on seat order and the current progress of the game, it might just happen that the Liberals pass their 5th policy before a President is ever forced to pick you as Chancellor.

Due to these restraints, it's why Hitler is usually played Liberal.
And why noone ever sees a Ballsy Hitler play coming...

Veteran Gameplay - Throwing Hitler under a bus [F]

This might come as an actually intuitive concept for a play, and I will not doubt there is the one or other new player who actually decided to do this (and then either failed horribly or won hilariously).
The idea of this play is to 'throw Hitler under the bus' as a fellow Fascist (or, alternatively, do it with another Fascist).
'But why the hell would you do that to a teammate? Isn't that griefing?'
Yes and no.

Consider the situation: You, as a Fascist player, hand Hitler two reds. He plays one, then you accuse him of being a Fascist for playing a red card whilst you, allegedly, gave him a choice. Obviously Hitler will proclaim his innocence and call you a Fascist.
A conflict ensues, in which everyone will, per default, assume that one of you two is a Fascist.

Now you need to put on your best Pokerface, and act like a Liberal who got crossed by a Fascist, but in a shallow way that actually makes people suspect you of being the liar. Yet, without being too obvious about trying to be found out.
The more people distrust you, the more likely they are to believe that Hitler is a Liberal. Because why else would you, as an assumed Fascist, try to throw him under the bus?

The best outcome would be for someone to put you under Gunpoint (which makes this tactic a direct counterplay to Gunpoint).
Be given a red and a blue card. Play the red card. Get shot (yes, this play is so veteranly advanced, it actually involves you trying to get shot, go figure). Preferably in a setting where it's evident that a Facist couldn't have played a blue card (i.e. 3 blue policies being on the board). Boink, now everyone believes you are a dead Fascist and thefore Hitler must be innocent.
Alternatively, watch them put Hitler under Gunpoint, just to instantly lose the game.

Of course, whilst this sounds all good and well, there are a number of big downsides, which are why usually people would see this play as 'griefing', 'trolling' or 'not worth it'

• If Hitler is an unexperienced player, he might end up confused as to why someone would lie to accuse him for no reason (since that's what Facists do). He might just decide to loudly proclaim he is Hitler and you are a Fascist trolling him, revealing his role card and causing you to get banned for ruining the round.
  
• Whilst the conflict is in effect, TWO Fascists are removed from the election game, meaning it might as well happen that enough Liberal reforms are plainly passed and cause you to lose the game.
  
• After you got shot, people might suspect the President of being a Fascist, who just shot a Liberal in order to help his Fascist ally (who would turn out to be Hitler).
  
• You act too obvious about intending to be found out and people start to assume that both you and Hitler are Fascists.

To summarize, throwing Hitler under a bus is a very specialized play, that has a lot of inherent disadvantages and is best, if at all, played against competent players, who are likely to use Gunpoint and simply don't value the concept of throwing Hitler under a bus and therefore would never believe someone ACTUALLY did just that.


As well, make sure to apologize to Hitler after you win.

And change your account name if you lose.

Closing Words

First off, congratulations and thank you on spending the countless minutes on actually reading that dry, theoretical wall of text. Then again, if you actually checked for a guide on this kind of a game, you are probably a passionate bluff game player and didn't mind the read at all.

In any case, I hope that I could provide you with new insights, ideas and views on how to play 'Secret Hitler', in order to make the game all the more interesting and challenging for the all of us.

I thoroughly welcome any kind of feedback and discussions, and will point out that it's likely for me to extend the guide further, whilst playing the game more or getting more input via comments from you people.


As last words, my thanks go to

• Max Temkin for the creation and free distribution of the game 'Secret Hitler'
  
• FragaholiC for creating the workshop mod 'Secret Hitler' for TTS
  
• TotalBiscuit and his crew for promoting 'Secret Hitler' on YouTube and being the reason I even stumbled across this game in first place
  
• Everyone who I played with so far and therefore helped me to gain the experience necessary to write this guide

[All talk and no fight]

Brilliant Write up, A+ for you good sir.

[Turkestan Monster]

>eventually get you banned at the end of the game if people realize you are actually a Liberal.
I swear to God only table top simulator ultra try hard retards of secret hitler can pull this shit off. This isnt even a bad guide, but getting banned for doing a game mechanic is fucking dumb

[Farra]

These tactics really depend on the meta and flavour of the month. People who usually play in groups of similar people every game develop counter strategies to these tactics that only work because they know who they are playing with. I'd say any kind of tactic for social games should heavily rely on the people you are playing with.

[FlamezOfGamez]

Did you want to add in a section about the F3 Presidential Power in a 5-6 player game? As it stands, it feels like a lot of this guide is aimed at 7+ player games.

[B]

i didnt understand anything but i still gave a thumbs up. good job

[MReel]

Great guide. Enjoy the 100 Points

[Nephilim]

well i just found something that i cant agree with - its part of your card counting - as u said only the one with FFF could be liars - thats totally wrong - as Fascist/even sometimes as Liberal - i am hiding L cards (until reshuffle) - so I draw FLL and tell it was FFL - its not always the tripple F who is lieing xD happens a lot in advanced games... hiding drawn blue cards is a good way to force Fascists coming after to play blue cards

[emay]

ı didnt understand card counting part in the first example how did you understand they are fasist and Chancellor did get 2 card how did you write 3 card after / ?

[Koryn]

1. You should mention in the everyone section that hitler not knowing anything is 7+ people. 2. If you as F get hitler into a conflict, you should wait a few turns, then start looking like the obv F. This works better if you get the inspect power as well. You conflict Hitler/Lib and inspect the other. This way, you instigated 2 conflicts, immediately look like the F and you have at least 1 lib trusting hitler.

[Mainframe]

Except speaking as the president before the chancellor is literally against the rules though. you're not allowed to do that, or at least you're not supposed to