The rules
How to play
Bang! is a shootout between hidden roles. You know your own job and the Sheriff's — the rest you work out from who shoots whom. Ten minutes to learn, and this page is the whole of it.
What you are trying to do
Every player is dealt a secret role. The Sheriff's is turned face up immediately; the others stay hidden until their owner is eliminated. Your role decides who you need dead.
Sheriff
Kill every Outlaw and the Renegade.
Deputy
Protect the Sheriff. Kill every Outlaw and the Renegade.
Outlaw
Kill the Sheriff.
Renegade
Be the last one standing — kill the Sheriff last.
The Renegade is the awkward one: they want to be the last player alive, which means propping up the Sheriff while the Outlaws are still a threat and turning on him at the very end.
Who is at the table
| Players | Sheriff | Deputy | Outlaw | Renegade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 1 | — | 2 | 1 |
| 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| 6 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| 7 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
What you start with
One character, dealt at random from 16. The bullets on the character card are your maximum life. The Sheriff gets one extra, because everybody knows where he sits.
You are then dealt a hand equal to your life. A three-bullet character starts on three cards and dies faster; that is the trade.
Your hand limit is your current life. Being shot does not just cost you a heart, it shrinks how much you are allowed to hold at the end of your turn. This is what makes a losing position spiral.
Taking a turn
Draw two cards
From the top of the deck. Several characters change this step — Black Jack may get a third, Jesse Jones can steal his first from someone's hand, Pedro Ramirez can take the top of the discard pile.
Play as many cards as you like
In any order. The only hard cap is one Bang! per turn, and a Volcanic removes even that. Equipment you play stays in front of you and keeps working.
Discard down to your hand limit
Down to your current life. Then play passes to your left.
Cards aimed at you can arrive at any time, including in the middle of someone else's turn. Answering them is not optional and does not use up your turn.
Distance and range
A Bang! only reaches a player inside your weapon's range, so knowing how far away someone is matters more than anything else in the game.
Count the chairs between you, going whichever way round the table is shorter. Eliminated players are out of the ring entirely — as people die, everyone gets closer.
What your weapon reaches
| Weapon | Range | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Colt .45 | 1 | What you carry when you carry nothing |
| Volcanic | 1 | Close range, but no limit on Bang! cards per turn |
| Schofield | 2 | Reaches past your neighbours |
| Remington | 3 | Covers the whole table, even at seven players |
| Rev. Carabine | 4 | Covers the whole table |
| Winchester | 5 | Covers the whole table |
Two cards bend the measurement. A Scope in front of you makes everyone one closer. A Mustang in front of them makes them one further away. They cancel out, and no amount of stacking brings anyone nearer than distance 1.
Range applies to Bang! and to nothing else. Cat Balou, Duel, Indians! and Gatling ignore distance completely — and Panic! is the odd one, reaching exactly distance 1 regardless of what you are holding.
Getting shot at
When a Bang! lands on you, you either produce a Missed! or lose a life. A Barrel in front of you gives you a free attempt first — see the draw! below.
Reaching zero life does not eliminate you straight away. You get one last chance to play a Beer, which brings you back to one life. Anyone can keep drinking as long as they hold the cards.
Beer stops working when two players are left. The endgame is deliberately lethal — at that point the card is dead weight.
Not every attack is answered with a Missed!. Indians! demands an actual Bang! card from everyone else, and a Duel is a Bang! trading contest until one side runs dry.
The “draw!”
Some cards ask you to draw! — flip the top card of the deck face up and read its suit and rank, then discard it. It is the game's coin flip, and each card that uses it cares about something different:
- Barrel — a heart cancels the Bang!.
- Jail — a heart sets you free and you take your turn as normal.
- Dynamite — spades 2 through 9 and it goes off in your hands.
Lucky Duke flips two cards on every draw! and picks whichever he prefers, which is the most reliable ability in the game.
Dynamite and Jail
Both are blue cards that do their damage on somebody's next turn rather than now.
Dynamite sits in front of you. At the start of each of your turns you draw!: spades 2–9 costs you three life and destroys the card, anything else hands it to the player on your left. It circles the table looking for someone to kill.
Jail is played on somebody else and simply skips their turn unless they draw! a heart. It cannot be played on the Sheriff, and it does not stop them answering a Bang! aimed at them while they wait.
When someone dies
Their role is revealed and their cards go to the discard pile. What happens next depends on who they were:
- Kill an Outlaw and you draw three cards as a bounty.
- If the Sheriff kills a Deputy, he loses his entire hand and everything in front of him. Shoot carefully.
One character does better out of a funeral than anyone: while Vulture Sam is alive, the dead player's hand and equipment go to him instead of the discard pile.
How it ends
- The Outlaws win the moment the Sheriff dies — unless the only player left is the Renegade.
- The Sheriff and his Deputies win when every Outlaw and the Renegade are dead.
- The Renegade wins only by being the last player alive, with the Sheriff as the final kill.
That is the game. The 80 cards and every character's ability are written out in the card reference — or you can just sit down and let the table teach you.
Common questions
Do I need the physical card game?
No. The whole deck is here — all 80 cards and 16 characters are drawn for this table, and the rules are enforced by the game rather than by the players.
How many players do I need?
Four to seven. You do not have to round them up first: bots take any chair that is still empty when the game starts, so a table of one human works.
Can I play against bots only?
Yes. Fill every other seat with a bot and deal. Bots come in two difficulties, and they play at a deliberate pace so you can see what they did and why.
How long does a game take?
About twenty to forty minutes for a full table, and less when the Sheriff dies early. Games are saved as you go, so a browser refresh drops you back into the same seat.
Does it cost anything?
No. It is free, there are no adverts and there is no analytics tracking. Signing in only exists so a seat can be held for you between visits.
Is this the official Bang! game?
No. This is an unofficial fan-made digital table. Bang! is a game by Emiliano Sciarra, published by dV Giochi.