The price of gold keeps rising, and we are dwarves who are trying to get our hands on that precious metal. To make the digging less boring, there are also Saboteurs whose goal is to secretly obstruct and slow down the digging in an attempt to get the gold for themselves. Who will manage better and get their hands on the gold?
The board game Saboteur puts you in the role of dwarf miners who are digging a mine in search of gold. However, the search is not simple, partly because there are Saboteurs hiding among them! At the start of the game, you draw a card to see your role (Saboteur or miner), which remains secret. Players place path cards in an attempt to reach one of the three places where the gold might be. The Saboteurs' goal is to stop them from doing so, but not obviously, because if the miners don't reach the gold by the end of the game, the Saboteurs take all the gold for themselves.
On their turn, players can do one of three things: place a path card in the mine to shorten or lengthen the path to the gold; play an action card in front of other players to try to stop their progress by breaking their digging equipment, or help them by fixing their equipment; or skip their turn if they can't do anything on their turn. The path cards form routes that lead to one of the gold cards. They must be played next to an already placed path card on the board. The miners thus try to build a continuous path from the starting card to the gold card, while the Saboteurs try to prevent it. Players accuse each other of being a traitor; Saboteurs bluff and try to reveal themselves at the right moment to thwart the miners' goal. Although the board game Saboteur seems like a team game because the miners are fighting against the Saboteurs, there is only one winner—after three rounds of the game, the player with the most gold wins.