Card games
Saboteur
GigamicFréderic Moyersoen2004
- players
- 3–10
- minutes
- 30
- years
- 8+
In the box
44 Path cards · 27 Action cards · 28 Gold Nugget cards · 11 Dwarf cards: gold-diggers and saboteurs
Box details
- Designer
- Fréderic Moyersoen
- Artwork
- Andrea Boekhoff, Alexander Jung, Fréderic Moyersoen
- Publisher
- Gigamic
- Mechanics
- Hand ManagementHidden RolesHidden Victory PointsMap AdditionNetwork Building
- Expansions
- Saboteur 2 · 2012
- Saboteur: Rock Gold · 2014
Where to buy it
Near you and online
In a shop
Within 50 km.
Online
Affiliate link: Marquoir may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.
The basics
The gold-diggers dig a tunnel all the way to the gold, and the saboteurs, whose role is secret, try to stop them. On your turn, play a path card that connects to the ones in play, play an action card (broken tool, repair, rockfall, map) or pass by discarding, then draw a card. The round ends when the gold is reached or nobody can play any more, the winning side receives nuggets, and after three rounds the biggest pile of nuggets wins.
Checked against the official rules · October 2026
The rules, step by step
Setup
1 secret role each, 1 start card, 3 goals, only 1 gold
- Three to ten players. Prepare a deck of roles according to the table, always with one card more than there are players: 1 saboteur and 3 gold-diggers with three players, 1 and 4 with four, 2 and 4 with five, 2 and 5 with six, 3 and 5 with seven, 3 and 6 with eight, 3 and 7 with nine, all eleven cards with ten.
- Each player secretly receives a role; the remaining card is set aside face down, without being looked at.
- The start card is laid out face up, and the three goal cards face down, seven cards away from it, one card apart from each other: only one of them holds the gold.
- The other path cards and the action cards are shuffled: six per player with three to five players, five with six or seven, four with eight to ten. The rest forms the draw pile.
- The gold cards are shuffled face down. The youngest player starts, then play goes clockwise.
How to play
Play a path card, Action card or pass, Then draw
- On your turn, play a path card, play an action card, or pass by discarding a card face down — then draw a card. Once the draw pile is empty, you no longer draw; with no cards in hand, you pass.
- A path card is placed next to a card already in play, all its sides must connect to their neighbours, and never crosswise.
- A broken tool card (lamp, pickaxe, mine cart) played in front of a player stops them playing path cards until it is repaired. A player can have up to three broken tools, one of each kind.
- A repair card, played on yourself or on another player, removes the matching broken tool; a repair card showing two tools only repairs one.
- A rockfall removes a path card of your choice from the maze (never the start card or a goal card).
- The map card lets you look at one of the three goal cards without showing it.
- A goal card reached by a continuous path is turned over: if it is the gold, the round ends; if it is a stone, it stays in play, connected as well as possible, and the round goes on.
Scoring
Gold to the gold-diggers, Saboteurs: fixed amount
- If the gold-diggers win, as many gold cards as there are players are drawn face down (only nine with ten players): the player who reached the gold looks at them, chooses one, then passes the rest to the next gold-digger anticlockwise, and so on until none are left. Some may receive more than others.
- With three or four players, there may be no saboteur at all: if the gold is not reached, nobody earns any nuggets.
- Winning saboteurs share a fixed amount, which is higher the fewer they are: 4 nuggets for a lone saboteur, 3 each for two or three, 2 each for four.
- Nuggets add up from one round to the next and stay secret until the end.
End of the game
3 rounds, Most nuggets
- The round ends when the gold is reached, or when the draw pile is empty and nobody can play any more. All roles are then revealed.
- The game has three rounds: the same role cards are dealt out again (including the one set aside), and the left-hand neighbour of the player who played the last card starts.
- The biggest pile of nuggets wins; in case of a tie, the tied players share the victory.
House rules and pitfalls
An over-cautious gold-digger is impossible to tell apart from a saboteur: doing nothing is the best sabotage…
- An over-cautious gold-digger is impossible to tell apart from a saboteur: doing nothing is the best sabotage, and the best way to be wrongly accused.
- Repairing someone's tool is the only fairly reliable proof of good faith — and it costs you a turn.
Going further
Frequently asked questions · Rules on video · In the same family
Frequently asked questions
Who is playing against whom?
Nobody knows at the start: each player secretly receives a Gold-Digger or Saboteur role. The gold-diggers want to dig through to the gold, the saboteurs want to stop them without being unmasked.
How do you win a round?
The gold-diggers win if a path of tunnels connects the start card to the gold card. The saboteurs win if the gold has still not been reached when the draw pile is exhausted and nobody can play any more cards (hands empty).
What can you do on your turn?
Play a path card (which must connect to the network), play an action card (break or repair a player's tool, look at a goal card, rockfall), or pass by discarding a card.
How do you spot the saboteurs?
By their clumsy plays: tunnels that end in dead ends, tools broken "at random". But a good saboteur digs straight until the very last moment. Suspicion is the whole game.
How is the gold shared out?
The winning side shares out gold nuggets: the gold-digger who reached the gold chooses their card first, then the other gold-diggers anticlockwise; winning saboteurs receive a fixed amount depending on how many they are. After three rounds, the biggest fortune wins.
Rules on video
Videos in French, hosted on YouTube.