Friend or Foe
Who's in the room?
Some people build. Some people sell out. The whole game is working out which is which before the night runs out.
Friend or Foe is a social deduction game about the thing that has always undone collective work — not sabotage from outside, but somebody inside putting another interest first. You will accuse the wrong person. You will be accused. That's the point.
How it plays
Every player takes a character card and holds it, hidden, all night. Most of you move with the formation. A few of you serve KHAOS.
Each round, one player convenes. They name a delegation and the room votes on it — hands up, five seconds, majority sends them. Then the delegates each play one vote card, face down. The moderator shuffles them where everyone can see, and turns them over.
All LOCKED IN, and the delegation held. One SOLD OUT in the pile, and somebody in that group was working against you. You know it happened. You don't know who.
Then the floor opens, and the floor is the whole game.
Three rounds if the night is short. Five if it isn't. First side to a majority takes it.
For the regulars
Two optional cards change everything. The Elder is shown one Foe before the first round — a lead, never an answer. The Plant is the one Foe the Elder is never shown.
With both in play, a win by the formation isn't final. After the last round, the Foes huddle and the Plant names one player in the room as the Elder. Get it right, and KHAOS takes the night after losing every round.
Which is why the Elder has to be right without ever looking right.
In the deck
52 cards, poker-weight, matte linen.
- 8 Friends and 4 Foes — twelve original portraits, no face repeated
- The Elder and The Plant
- 24 vote cards — LOCKED IN in gold, SOLD OUT in the cube
- 4 delegate cards and 5 round cards, so nobody consults a rulebook mid-game
- The convener's chair
- Two moderator cards — read them aloud, in order, every time
- The Elder steal, in full
No rulebook. Everything you need is printed on a card in the deck.
Where it comes from
Friend or Foe belongs to the NuRenN ecosystem.
NuRenN Connect is a social app with no feed — a room that opens six times a week, where you show up as your face and your first name, and when it closes, it closes. Who's in the room is the question that app asks, and this deck asks it at a table.
Remix is where the formation and KHAOS come from — a narrative series about a coalition trying to hold together while something works to pull it apart. In the very first episode, one of the people the formation trusts is reporting to the other side. This game is that hour, played by hand.
Scan the two cards in the back of the deck and you're in both.
Made for a room
This was built for a Tuesday night at a Black-owned bar in Brooklyn — a table, low light, a drink, and eight people who mostly don't know each other yet. It plays anywhere. It plays best there.
Mental liberation. Economic empowerment. Sovereign reclamation.
Black is Gold.
5–12 players · 25 minutes · Ages 14+
2.32" × 3.58" · 52 cards · matte finish · custom tuck box
Designed in Brooklyn · nurenn.store