Ostrakon (2004)

About this game

Is there life in outer space or not? Baseball or basketball? To be or to have? Chicken or beef? The real speaker knows how to charm the audience with the greatest dilemma, predicting the opinions thanks to a supernatural intuition... or a more practical cheating technique! In Ostrakon, you take the role of a Greek philosopher, posing questions on assigned topics with only 2 answers. The other players decide which of the two answers suits them, and the philosopher secretly votes with the side he thinks will outnumber the other. If he is correct, he scores points equal to the number of players who voted against his choice. If he is incorrect, he scores nothing. So its best to pick questions with roughly equally viable answers.

Does it fit your group?

• Group size. Works with 5 to 12.
• Rules load. At 1.4/5 this is a light game — explain it in a few minutes, good for a table that has not played much.
• Age. The publisher suggests 10 and up. That rates the rules rather than the artwork, so judge the box yourself for younger players.