A Good Hand Wasted

The friends accept what appears to be a genuine luxury getaway but are manipulated into a lethal game — satisfying the 'protagonist discovers they have been manipulated' core requirement. Loyalties fracture and buried secrets are exposed, confirming major betrayals within a trusted group. Paranoia is fully validated as the game reveals who among the friends cannot be trusted. The mysterious dealer's invitation functions as a deception hidden inside an ostensibly benign social arrangement, and the group must suspect everyone around them as the game escalates.

About this trope: Trusted allies, institutions, or authority figures are secretly working against the protagonist. Paranoia is justified because betrayal is real and pervasive.

Russian roulette as a recurring mechanic places characters in objectively hopeless, life-or-death circumstances where surrender is rational. The central arc is explicitly about persisting to outlast a lethal game rather than accepting death. Surviving each successive round despite mounting losses satisfies the 'survival against impossible odds' and 'refuses to quit when surrender would be rational' signals; the survival-horror framing presents this endurance as the story's defining human quality.

About this trope: Facing impossible odds, humans endure, adapt, and find reasons to keep going. Resilience and refusal to surrender is humanity's defining and most admirable trait.