Pagan: Fate of Roanoke Review

Pagan: Fate of Roanoke is an asymmetrical card game for two, where a relentless Witch Hunter struggles to unmask a powerful Witch hidden among the townsfolk of the titular village.  While the Hunter ruthlessly gathers clues and evidence, the Witch collects secrets and gathers favor amongst the townsfolk.  If the Hunter succeeds, the unmasked Witch will be brought to justice, but should the Witch triumph, the entire island will be reclaimed by nature, a fatal result for the village and everyone who lives in it.

Team Gameosity loves a 2-player game, so much the better if that game is asymmetrical, and the dark fantasy aesthetic of Pagan: Fate of Roanoke immediately caught our eye.  But how well does this literal witch hunt play?  Let’s start interviewing some villagers (or plying them with favors and secrets) as we explore the likely-doomed village of Roanoke!

Overview

Let’s get this out of the way right up front – the premise of Pagan: Fate of Roanoke is kinda icky.  Knowing what we know about historical witch hunts in colonial America, the victims were almost always women who were deemed ‘inconvenient’ to the Puritanical mores of the times, and the hunts themselves have become synonymous with unjust harassment/punishment of innocent.  Publishers Wyrmgold and Capstone Games put a disclaimer right on the first page of the rulebook, clarifying that Pagan: Fate of Roanoke is a work of fiction and not intended to condone violence or comment on any historical figure.  And with the historical context, not to mention that prominent disclaimer, it’s extremely easy to see the Hunter as the villain in Pagan: Fate of Roanoke, and their methods (and possible victory condition) certainly support that.

Andrew

However, in the context of the game itself, there is an actual witch and they are actually trying to cause harm, and with that understanding in place, Pagan: Fate of Roanoke is a cat-and-mouse game of gray-on-gray morality that I found made the theme even more effective, especially since the identity of the Witch is the central mystery of the game – it *might* be Widow Atkins, but it could just as easily be Mayor Biggs or even Preacher Wulfric!

Perks, Quirks, & Pitfalls

Perks are things we like about a game, whereas Pitfalls are potentially problematic aspects.  Quirks sit somewhere in the middle, just things worth noting:

Perks

• Aesthetics: The grim artwork and color palette perfectly match the dark theme
• Asymmetry: The Witch and the Hunter play differently enough that you can’t approach them the same way
• Deduction for 2: Most deduction games work better at higher player counts

Quirks

• Playtime: An hour is a relatively long playtime for a 2 player game
• Expandable: While the game is designed to include expansions and a deck construction element, you don’t get any of that in the base game
• Theme: The historical concept of a ‘witch hunt’ can be off-putting to some

Pitfalls

• Component clutter: The tokens tend to pile up on cards and will definitely benefit from an upgrade

How It Plays

The gameplay in Pagan: Fate of Roanoke is, as mentioned before, asymmetrical hand management.  Each player has a deck of cards that represent their possible actions and resources that they’ll use over the course of the game.  The Hunter’s deck, matching the thematic nature of the character, is aggressive – it’s designed to keep putting pressure on the villagers, gather evidence, and styme the Witch’s actions.  The Hunter can hire on allies to help them, as well as establish locations around town that give him extra action options.  The Hunter wins if they manage to exonerate 8 of the 9 villagers and reveal the identity of the Witch.

Andrew

The Hunter can also win by ‘eliminating’ the Witch, but that’s a very high-risk tactic, as it takes a lot to set up and can end up in an automatic loss if done incorrectly – the people of Roanoke may be superstitious, but if the Hunter kills too many innocent people in his quest, they’ll turn on him.

By contrast, the Witch’s deck is more subtle and disruptive, currying favor by casting enchantments over the village, calling on familiars to enhance actions, and brewing potions that can be strategically quaffed in order to gain advantages.  But the Witch is not without the ability to directly impede the Hunter, and can cut off their allies, hamper their movements around the village, and even burn down the locations the Hunter has set up.

Just like the Hunter, the Witch has two victory conditions (sort of).  The first involves gathering enough Favor tokens onto their (secret) villager in order to perform the ritual that wins them the game.  The second actually relies on the Hunter’s actions – should the Hunter eliminate 3 innocent villagers, the Witch wins the game.

Andrew

The Witch needs to be careful about how they gather favor, because as soon as the Hunter sees 2-3 Favor tokens on a villager, that villager naturally becomes a likely target for elimination. But a wily Witch knows that, and may use favor tokens to bait a foolish hunter into killing innocents…

A natural question is whether the two roles are balanced against each other.  We can’t really speak to that in an objective, abstract way, but in our plays of Pagan: Fate of Roanoke, the theme emerged that the Witch felt like they were often struggling to stay one step ahead of the Hunter, who was able to be aggressive and direct in their tactics.  But over time, a smart Witch would bait the Hunter around, using enchantments and potions to either constrict the Hunter’s actions or make big, unexpected plays, and possibly even manipulating the Hunter into expending the high resource cost to eliminate an innocent villager or two.  The tension between the roles is at the heart of the fun in Pagan: Fate of Roanoke, fun that’s just as grim and dark as the setting.

Pagan: Fate of Roanoke is also designed to be expanded, and publisher Capstone Games has released multiple smaller expansions, as well as a major one called Beyond the Palisades.  These expansions introduce new mechanics and cards, and give players additional scenarios that tweak the gameplay – the base game comes with 2 scenarios for you to experiment with.

Table Presence & Presentation

Pagan: Fate of Roanoke has a fantastic table presence and every card is saturated in personality – dark and moody with the occasional suggestion of subtle, grim humor.  The art by Maren Gutt is evocative and perfect for the setting.  The player boards do a good job of listing relevant information and organizing cards during gameplay.

The layout of the game itself makes it take up more table real estate than many 2-player only games, but thankfully that doesn’t translate into a bloated box size.  The rulebook is generally well laid-out, and reading it straight through taught us the game in a single pass.

The one meaningful critique of the presentation we had were the tokens.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with them – they are well-made and functional.  However, the tokens for player actions, which get placed on the player boards as well as the villagers the players visit, tended to get a little lost in the visual clutter of the game, especially when piles of clue and secret tokens also started to mass up on villagers.  It felt very much like the action tokens in particular wanted to be standees instead.  Conveniently, Capstone games sells a wooden component upgrade pack that replaces all cardboard chip tokens with (you guessed it) wooden ones, critically including the player action markers.

And if you like Pagan: Fate of Roanoke enough that you want to trick it out even more (and don’t give a dang about table space), then there’s even an optional neoprene playmat that replaces the player boards and the village row.

Final Thoughts

As we said at the start, Team Gameosity has always loved 2-player games, and Pagan: Fate of Roanoke fits nicely into that list.  The asymmetry doesn’t come in the form of ‘two players playing very different games’, rather, it’s about the different endgame goals and the way they play out against each other.  The Witch has a lot of power at their disposal, but in order to win they will need to come as close to tipping their hand as possible without giving the Hunter the opportunity to zero in on them before they’re ready to win – otherwise, the Hunter will take them out and win the game.

While we didn’t play any of the expansions for this review, we certainly would be interested in checking them out.  In particular, we’re curious about the expanded scenarios in the expansions and how they might impact the gameplay – the two included in the base game are gentle tweaks that add a little spice but don’t change the gameplay significantly.  Personally, the prospect of customizing the decks doesn’t meaningfully appeal to us, but we’re also curious about how new cards might change the strategies in the game, especially paired with new villagers.

Which brings us to the bottom line.  Pagan: Fate of Roanoke is a solid, engaging, strategic duel of cat and mouse, except the cat’s got a shotgun with very limited ammo and the mouse occasionally peeks out of its hole with a flamethrower.  The ‘strategic deduction’ core of the game is compelling and clever, we loved the grim theme and aesthetic presentation, and will certainly be adding it to the roster of 2-player games.  It’s not for people who are looking for light, breezy gameplay or who will be put off by its theme, but otherwise, Pagan: Fate of Roanoke is extremely playable, engaging, and totally worth checking out.

Other Recommendations

If Pagan: Fate of Roanoke sounds like the kind of game for you, or even if you’re looking for some alternative options, here are a few other recommendations based on Pagan: Fate of Roanoke:

• A game for 2 with a spooky theme:  Significantly less spooky and complex than Pagan, Dracula vs. Van Helsing is still a fantastic 2-player hand management game with easy-to-engage deduction gameplay (with a touch of asymmetry thrown in), excellent production, and a small enough box & table footprint that it’s also a great travel game for 2.
• Another 2-player asymmetrical game of cat & mouse: Well, shark & octopus, really.  Kelp: Shark vs. Octopus leans into the asymmetry between the titular creatures, with the sly octopus and relentless shark playing very different games on the same board.  And it’s a really pretty game to boot!
• A game with evocative art and a horrific theme: The Night Cage is a cooperative tile-laying game set in the terrifying titular maze, where players will desperately work together to avoid monsters and gather the keys needed to escape before their candles snuff out and the ever-shifting cage closes on them forever.