Whose life do you value more? A game of difficult moral decisions.
Many have heard of the trolley problem. It comes in many forms, but the general idea is this: an out-of-control trolley is speeding down a track where five people are tied up. You’re standing next to a lever and can pull it to switch the trolley onto a parallel track, where only one person is tied up.
If you do nothing, five people die. But if you intervene, you directly kill one person to save the five.
Which choice is moral, and which is not? What is the right thing to do? Philosophers have debated this dilemma for years, yet no definitive answer has ever been found.
The dilemma can become even more complex by adding extra conditions. What if, instead of five people, there were ten? Or fifteen? Or a hundred? What if some of the people on the tracks were people you personally cared about?
What would you do? What choice would you make?
Not long ago, the team behind Cyanide & Happiness turned their attention to this famous dilemma. Yes, the same people who have been creating internet comics with a simple yet recognizable art style, packed with the most cynical humor. These very people decided to make a board game called Trial by Trolley, based on the trolley problem.
The essence of the game is simple: the group of players selects a Conductor, then splits into two equal teams. An unstoppable trolley is rushing down the tracks, and the only thing the Conductor can do is turn right or left, running over everyone on the chosen track.
Setting up the tracks is straightforward:
1. Each team places one random "innocent" card on their own track and then selects another from their hand. These cards feature things that a normal person wouldn’t want to run over—your best friends, relatives, kittens... After all, who in their right mind would send cute little kittens under a trolley? Right? Right...?
2. Next, each team plays a "criminal" card on the opposing track. These cards represent those whom a normal person might want to run over or at least wouldn’t mind doing so—pedophiles, murderers, exes, and so on.
3. Finally, to make the already "not-so-difficult" choice even harder, each team plays a modifier card on any character on the tracks. Now, suddenly, this person will commit genocide in ten years, that one will discover the cure for cancer, and that other guy? He’s actually a reptilian in disguise.
Once the tracks are set, both teams engage in a peaceful philosophical discussion, trying to convince the Conductor to send the trolley down the other track. In reality, this is the core of the game. If you allow yourself to get even slightly immersed, you’ll quickly realize that your moral compass is spinning like a helicopter, and your friends at the table are shameless, ruthless manipulators.
At the same time, for the players involved in the debate, this serves as an excellent exercise in rhetoric.
When the discussion ends and the Conductor is ready to make the most "moral" decision in the given situation, they pull the lever, crushing everyone on one of the tracks.
The players responsible for that track receive death tokens, and the role of the Conductor passes to the next player. The game continues until each player has had a turn as the Conductor (or until everyone gets tired of playing). The player with the fewest death tokens wins.
As gameplay unfolds, it becomes clear that a silver tongue plays a much bigger role than pure game randomness, which is undoubtedly a huge plus.
The game is also well-made, with 500 cards even in the standard set (not to mention various thematic expansions). The cards feature the recognizable Cyanide & Happiness art style and their signature humor, which, while dark, rarely crosses into outright cringe territory.
The game box is compact, making it easy to take anywhere. While Trial by Trolley may not become a bestseller on the level of Munchkin, it guarantees plenty of fun evenings without any trouble.
And, of course, it will also make you reflect on the meaning of life and the challenge of making tough moral choices...