
The CIA made a Magic: The Gathering-style card game for training agents - coloneltcb
https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/21/17374054/cia-collect-it-all-declassified-training-tabletop-card-game
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norswap
This doesn't look like Magic: The Gathering at all. More like a board game
that uses cards.

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godelski
I was also kind of surprised at the reference to Love Letter as a card game
that has a lot of replay value.

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fouc
My coworkers and I used to regularly play Coup or Love Letter for a few months
on our lunch breaks. I suppose it's not quite as replayable as Coup but we
still did keep playing it over that span. I suppose if we had more selection
of card games we would've moved on.

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godelski
> I suppose if we had more selection of card games we would've moved on.

This was the case for me. I keep LL in my bag, because it is quick, easy, and
a great way to kill 20 minutes. Coup hasn't worked well with my friend group
because we got good at reading one another.

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kaishiro
In my experience this is _precisely_ when social deduction games go from good
to great. The layers of obfuscation can get pretty deep when your friend knows
you know how he would act if you knew what he knew.

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MaysonL
Techdirt is running a Kickstarter campaign for a version of the game that
they're developing: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mmasnick/cia-
collect-it...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mmasnick/cia-collect-it-
all)

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MBCook
The most recent episode of the Techdirt podcast discusses how the project
started and gives some ideas about how they’ve approched it and how it works.

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kqr2
Link for reference:
[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180518/22191239865/techd...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180518/22191239865/techdirt-
podcast-episode-167-cia-collect-it-all.shtml)

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ggggtez
This looks more like Munchkin. Players who are ostensibly on the same "team"
actually spend most of their time trying to undermine each other in the name
of getting more successes than their peers.

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no2ss
If you listen to the latest Techdirt podcast where they discuss this game,
they actually talk about exactly that: that the game feels somewhat inspired
by Munchkin, even if it's not explicitly cited.

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ghostbrainalpha
The CIA also has a board game focused on the Mafia and Cartels where you
capture "El Chapo".

[https://kotaku.com/the-cia-made-a-board-game-and-its-now-
pla...](https://kotaku.com/the-cia-made-a-board-game-and-its-now-
playable-1825556825)

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kevin_thibedeau
Sequel title

"El Chapo: Escape from NY"

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themodelplumber
Ok now I feel like designing a scenario which includes a CIA card game
mastermind. Now retired and living in an obscure villa...with a safe
containing the unreleased beta for game version two, "nanobot edition"...

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blackbagboys
Doesn't seem particularly true to life. Where are the cards for kidnapping
innocent people off the streets, keeping them locked in secret prisons,
pulverizing their internal organs and torturing them to death?

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no2ss
How do we know that's not in there? After all, they said lots of the original
cards were redacted...

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blackbagboys
Good point! Hopefully the Kickstarter crew will incorporate the "incinerate
whole families based on probabilistic guesswork" card in the public release.

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powerset
I know whether this game is intended to be a recruiting campaign, but if it is
it seems like a pretty clever one.

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em3rgent0rdr
CIA should pivot into making games.

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nol13
oh they have.. bwhahaha!

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hulton
Reminds me of the Illuminati Card Game.

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briandear
I wish uninformed journalists could be bothered to get the terminology right.

A CIA “agent” is a foreign national — a spy. A CIA officer is the American who
is “running” the agent.

FBI has Special Agents, CIA has officers.

It’s much like calling a police officer a “police agent.” The reason this
bothers me is that it reveals an ignorance of CIA at a fundamental level — if
writers can’t even get the basic terminology accurate, how could they possibly
be trusted to get the non-trivial aspects correct?

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tomc1985
The dictionary definition of "agent" is "a person who acts on behalf of
another person or group." Industry terms of art notwithstanding, anyone acting
on the CIA's behalf is technically an "agent", in the same way that an
employee is an agent of their employer. Similarly, it also means that LEO are
agents of their force, if not the government.

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jachee
Also, it's not a difficult logic leap to call members of the Agency "agents".

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toomanybeersies
Although that would make members of the FBI bureaucrats.

