You are the head of a family in an Italian city-state, a city controlled by a weak and corrupt court. You need to manipulate, bribe and bluff your way to power. Your goal is to destroy the influence of all the other families, forcing them into exile. Only one family survives...

In Coup, you want to be the last player with influence in the game, influence is represented by face-down character cards in your playing area.

Each player begins the game with two coins and two influence – i.e., two face-down character cards; the fifteen card deck consists of three copies of five different characters, each with a unique set of powers:

Duke: Take three coins from the treasury. Prevent someone from taking foreign aid.
Assassin: Pay three coins and attempt to assassinate another player's character.
Contessa: Block an assassination attempt on yourself.
Captain: Take two coins from another player, or block another from stealing coins from you.
Ambassador: Draw two character cards from the Court (the deck), pick which (if any) to exchange with your face-down characters, then return two. Prevent someone from stealing coins from you.

On your turn, you can take any actions listed above, regardless of which characters you actually have in front of you, or you can take one of three other actions:

Income: Take 1 coin from the treasury.
Foreign aid: Take 2 coins from the treasury.
Coup: Pay 7 coins and start a coup against an opponent, forcing that player to lose an influence. (If you have ten coins or more, you must take this action.)

When you take one of the character actions – either actively on your turn, or defensively in response to someone else's action – that character's action automatically succeeds except when an opponent challenges you. In this case, if you can't (or don't) reveal the proper character, you lose an influence, placing one of your characters face-up. Face-up characters cannot be played and if both of your characters are face-up, you are out of the game.

If you do have the character in question and decide to reveal it, the opponent loses an influence, then you shuffle that character into the deck and draw a new one, possibly getting the same character again and perhaps not.

The last player to continue to have influence – that is, a face-down character – wins the game!

A new & optional character called the Inquisitor has been included (currently, the only English edition with the Inquisitor included is the Kickstarter Version from Indie Boards & Cards. Copies in stores might not be the Kickstarter versions and may only be the base game). The Inquisitor character cards can be used to replace the Ambassador cards.

Inquisitor: Select one character card from the Court deck and choose whether or not to exchange it with one of your face-down characters. OR make an opponent show you one of their character cards (their choice which). If you wish it, you may then make them draw a new card from the Court deck. They then shuffles the old card into the Court deck. Prevent someone from stealing coins from you.