Gaming usually has you take on the role of a hero. This is especially true of video games, which, for the most part, involve a single player fighting against enemies controlled by a computer. Because most people prefer good guys to bad guys, the player is usually cast in the role of the 🔥hero.

However, there are plenty of games, both video and tabletop, that deviate from this, and let players play around with the role of a villain. Here, we’re going to show you some of the best board games out there that cast players as bad guys. Note that this list is not about games where only one of several players plays a bad guy. Sure, it may be possible to play a bad guy in a game like that, but that’s not the primary experience of that game. This list is about games where playing as the villain is the🍬 primary experience, if not the only one available.

Most Iconic Villains
Disney Villainous card game box

Your Rating

Type of Game
Card-Based Strategy 𝐆
Age Recommendation
10+
Game Duration
ꦜ 40-60 minutes
Brand
🥃 Disney / Ravensburger
What's Included
B🌳ase Game: 6x Boards, 6x Villain Movers, 180 Villain Cards, 90x Fate Cards, 84x Tokens, 1x Cauldron, 6x Reference Cards, 6x Villain Guides & Instructions.

This fun, strategic card game casts players as one of six iconic Disney villains, and charges them with using their unique decks♕ and abilities to accomplish equally unique goals.

Pros & Cons
  • Easy to learn, but strategically deep
  • Features iconic characters
  • Simple enough that experienced gamers might find themselves wanting more

This strategic combination card and board game casts players as one of several iconic Disney villains. The base game alone has Captain Hook, Maleficent, Prince John, Ursula, Jafar, or the Queen of Heart𓆉s, and there are several expaღnsions containing additional bad guys.

Each of these characters plays differently. They have their own unique deck full of thematic abilities, and th✨eir own board which they move around on to perform different actions. They’re also each paired with a customized fate deck containing events that can be used against them. The fundamental mechanics of the game are the s🔯ame for each of them, but their different abilities make them play differently. On top of all that, they each have their own completely different win condition, so what you’re trying to do as you play with them will vary as much as everything else!

Best Expansion
Star Wars Villainous: Power Of The Dark Side

An extension of the above game, Star Wars Villainous replaces its iconic Di𒆙sney villains with, well, another set of Disney villains, technicallyᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ, but this time it’s the ones from Star Wars.

Pros & Cons
  • Several iconic Star Wars villains
  • Compatible with other Villainous games
  • Emperor Palpatine is not playable in the base game or any of its expansions

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Star Wars Villainous is simultaneously an expansion of the original Disney edition and a stand-alone game. There are five villains here, plenty to allow you to play the game on your own, but the rules are the same, so you can easily play with a mixture of villains from each of them🍌. You can further mix these with villains from the numerous other expansions that are available, including additional Star Wars villains and a handful taken from Marvel. This leaves you with loads of options, far too many to appear in any one game, which means every game of Villainous feels truly different.

Best Social Deduction Game
Coup
Type of Game
🔴 Card, strategy 🔯
Age Recommendation
13+
Game Duration
15 mins
What's Included
ﷺ Game cards, instructions
Number of Players
2-6 players 👍 ♒

Set in a dystopian sci-fi universe reminiscent of the setting of Dune, Coup follows the intrigues of several wealthy aristocrats as they work ꦫto undermine and destroy one another, not just with the cards they were dealt, but also with the ones they weren’t.

Pros & Cons
  • Simple & Fast
  • Easy to Learn
  • So short a single round can be unsatisfying

Coup is a game of intrigue. At the onset, each character is dealt a pair of cards. Each card has its own aristocratic p☂ersonage, be it a captain, a Duke, an assassin, or a Contessa. Each of these card types has unique abilities♑, and the players need to use these abilities to kill off their opponents’ cards and obtain victory. The catch? The cards are dealt face down, so there’s nothing to stop them from lying about what they have. Well, nothing but the threat of being punished if someone correctly calls them out.

The villainous flavor of this game is a key aspect of its tone. This game is about a bunch of horrible aristocrats lying to, murdering and betraying one another, so it’s incredibly fit🍃ting that deception and betrayal are the game’s core mechanics!

Most Intricate Gameplay
Mage Knight - Ultimate Edition

This extremely complicat𒁃ed but correspondingly rich tabletop fantasy game has you playing as a powerful, ruthless magical conqueror who has set out to raise armies and raze cities for their own gain.

Pros & Cons
  • Deep Strategy
  • Every game ends with a satisfying climactic battle
  • Viable solo mode
  • An extremely complicated game

Mage Knight is a beloved, extremely intricate fantasy game that can be played alone, cooperatively, or competitively. In this game, you play as a powerful magic warrior reminiscent of many evil overlord🎀s from various works of fantasy fiction, and you use the game’s lovingly crafted and very complex mechanics to conquer the realm’s n⛎umerous cities.

The specific product linked here is the ultimate edition, which includes the original base game plus all of its expansions i🐭n a single box, though you might want to start simpler, and work your way up to the🔥 full complexity this game is capable of. If you’re looking for an Evil Overlord experience, this is the game for you.

Funniest Game
Gloom (Second Edition)

This b🌱lack comedy card game places you in control of a macabre family in a cartoonish, gothic setting, and charges you with tormenting and killing them in order to accumulate points, even as your opponents try to sabotage you by brightening their days.

Pros & Cons
  • Reasonably Simple
  • Well-written, funny cards and characters
  • Some may find it difficult not to feel sorry for the poor families

There are two senses in which Gloom is about playing a villain. First, at least some of the eccentric families you work to torment in this game are morally questionable. This game has a very🐠 Adams Family aesthetic, complete with the moral ambiguity that it carries.

However, the main reason you’re the bad guy in this game is because of what you, the player, are doing. It’s your job to use the plastic cards in your hand to rain 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:comedically alliterative misfortune on the family you control, before killing them just as horri🌠bly. Essentially, you play as a sadistic, malevolent force that is be🔴nding fate to torture and torment these families, including their animals and children. That sounds pretty villainous to us!

Best Dice Game
Zombie Dice Deluxe Dice Game

This press-yourಌ-luck dice game casts the players as💦 zombies and tasks them with hunting down human survivors. Depending on a roll of the dice, each survivor has the potential to shoot you, or to fall and yield their scrumptious brains. How many brains can you eat before you’re put town?

Pros & Cons
  • Fast, fun dice mechanics
  • Simple to learn and understand
  • Total play time of only 10-20 minutes
  • High luck element, limited strategy

Another black comedy, after a fashion, this dice game casts you as a zombie and has you pursue various 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:survivors and try to eat as many brains as you can before getting shot too much. Depending on their color, the custom dice in this gam𒆙e have a variable chance of yielding brains or bullets.

Your task is to accumulate as many brains as possible over the course of a round, but be careful! If you press your lu🤪ck too far, and accumulate too many shotgun wounds, all the brains you’ve won that round are forfeit. This is a fast, fun game that has you making tense and meaningful choices about when to keep going and when to back down.

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Best Wargame
Warhammer 40,000 Starter Set
Material
Plastic
Painted?
No
What's Included
🥃 1x Handbook, 38x Citadel miniatures, 2x 🎶reference sheets, 1x gaming mat, 2x range rulers, 10x dice
Brand
🥃 Warhammer 40,000 ♐

Warhammer 40K is one of the biggest names in miniatures wargaming, with an immensely popular sci-fi franchise and an enormous amo🔯unt of lore to go with it. Pretty much everyone in this universe is a bad guy, but none more than the Imperium of Man.

Pros & Cons
  • Immense amount of lore
  • Deep strategy and custom armies
  • Getting into this game is very, very expensive

The most popular miniatures wargame in the world, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Warhammer 40K transports you into its term-coiningly grimdark setting, and has you lead an army consisting one of this riꦿch universe’s man൩y, many factions.

With so many factions to choose from, you might think that one of them, just one, would surely have to be a good guy, but you’d think wrong. There are really and truly no good options here. Morally, we mean. In every other respect, there are 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:loads of good options, and each accompanied by🐈 an immense amount of lore. The only thing𒁏 they all have in common is that they’re each horrible in their own special way.

Th🤪e entirety of Warhammer 40K is immense. There are genuinely countless figurines you can acquire and play as, not unlike the enormous variety of cards you can choose from in a trading card game. Even w💫hen they’re built from the same faction, every army in this game is different.

FAQ

What is the board game where one player is the villain?

A lot of games meet this description. There are hidden identity games like Werewolf, cooperative-with-defector games like Dead of Winter and Betrayal at ꦆHouse on the Hill, and 1v1 good vs evil games like Star Wars: Rebellion.

What Villainous games are there?

The Villainous games are owned by Disney, and all the villains in them are from Disney-owned properties. If it were any other company, that would be a meaningful restriction, but for an entertainment giant that owns massive swathes of popular culture, it leaves us with a healthy var𝕴iety of Disney Animated Studios, Pixar, Star Wars and Marvel villains to choose from.

Why is it more fun to play the villain?

Villains are allowed to do things the rest of us just aren’t. All of us spend our real lives restricted 💝by the rules of social🌱 behavior and morality. Entering into a fictional universe and playing as a villain lets us relax those restrictions and indulge darker impulses in a safe and socially acceptable environment.

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