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Social Ladder

There's a subset of board games that are at least as much psychology experiments as they are games. Stroop (Grand Gamers Guild) and The Mind (Coiledspring Games) are cases in point. And don't get us started on Unusual Suspects (Cranio Creations), which always seems like an exercise in racial profiling and stereotyping. Social Ladder, from Hothouse Games, has elements of those 'psychology experiments' but it still feels and plays like a party game.



It says 2-8 players on the box, but Social Ladder is really designed to be played by at least four players and it's best at higher player counts. It comprises a generous deck of double-sided 'question cards' displaying a characteristic. Each round, one player takes on the role of 'Master Rater' and they rank each of the players from Most to Least in relation to the 'question card' word. Before the rankings are revealed, players debate their relative positions and try to arrive at their own consensus of the correct order, and it's at this point that a player can play their 'power card' to switch their own card's position or to double down on it if they're convinced their position is correct in relation to the Master Rater's ranking.



There are other similar ranking games, most notably Fun Facts (Repos Production), which was a Spiel des Jahres nominee in 2023. Fun Facts requires players to write their own answers so it can be prone to gaming the game: players deliberately writing extreme answers to force their position in the ranking order. Social Ladder avoids that 'cheat' because it focuses on how players think of themselves and each other, and on how they think others perceive them. You can see then, Social Ladder is a true party game - certainly intended for players that know each other and possibly best played with inhibitions lightly lubricated with alcohol.


Few of us see ourselves exactly how others see us so, be warned, Social Ladder is a game that risks delivering harsh truths. Just a few of the 'question card' words might potentially cause embarrassment or offence so we'd recommend filleting the deck to take out cards that might be deemed NSFW (Not Safe For Work), but with these caveats this could be just the game to break out at parties.


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