You keep the company running.
The Worker
Five Modernizations or one terminated Rat.
Workers are the majority faction in Service Rat. You start the game knowing your own role and nothing about anyone else - no allies, no name list, no cheat sheet. Your job is to enact enough Modernization blueprints to keep the company healthy, while figuring out which of the players sitting across the table is a Saboteur, and which one is the Rat hiding inside the same team. You win as a group: every vote, every CEO pick, every read on a teammate matters.
Goal
Workers win in one of two ways: enact five Modernization blueprints over the course of the game, or terminate the Rat using an executive directive. Both endings count as a full Worker victory. You lose if six Sabotages are enacted, or if the Rat is elected Chief Engineer while three or more Sabotages are already on the board.
How to play this role
During Nomination and Voting, watch who the CEO trusts. A clean Worker CEO tends to pick the most-cleared player in the room as Chief Engineer; a Saboteur CEO will push a buddy through, sometimes a player nobody has voted on yet. Track every Ja vote on every shift - patterns harden over three or four rounds. If a player keeps voting yes on shifts that produce Sabotage blueprints, that is not a coincidence.
Learn to read the blueprint deck. The deck contains six Modernizations and eleven Sabotages, so Sabotages are common - but the count tells the story. If a CEO claims to have drawn three Sabotages and the Engineer claims they got two Sabotages, the math is still possible. If those claims repeat shift after shift with the same partner, the lie is in the room. Note who discards quickly and who stalls.
End-game is where Workers win or lose the read. Once four Sabotages are on the board, every executive directive becomes lethal. Push for an Audit on the most suspicious player before granting them power. Use Termination decisively: a wrong shot ends the game for you, a correct one ends it for the Rat. Never vote yes on a Chief Engineer you have not personally cleared once three or more Sabotages are out.
Quick tips
- Vote Nein on any CEO+Engineer pair you cannot account for - chaos enactment is better than a free Sabotage.
- Talk out loud about what you discarded; silent CEOs read as Saboteurs.
- Track the deck size; if the deck reshuffles mid-shift, claims about what was drawn become unverifiable.
- When you receive an Audit power, ask the table who they want investigated - then ignore that and pick the player whose votes do not add up.
- Save your Termination for the moment three Sabotages are on the board; the Rat will lean into the Chief Engineer chair to close out the game.
Common mistakes
- Voting Ja on every shift because it feels cooperative. Workers who never vote no give Saboteurs free policy slots.
- Trusting the previous Chief Engineer just because their last shift enacted a Modernization. One clean shift does not clear a Saboteur - it only proves the deck cooperated.
- Forgetting term limits. The previous CEO (and previous Engineer with 6+ alive) cannot be re-nominated, which narrows the pool and forces tells.
- Burning the Termination shot early on a gut read. The Rat usually only shows themselves once the board has three Sabotages - wait for the data.
Ready to test your read? Download Service Rat free on iOS and Android and host a five-to-ten-player table tonight.