captain_slinky (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
captain_slinky) wrote2014-06-23 12:55 pm
captain_slinky) wrote2014-06-23 12:55 pm
Taking the chance
I've submitted my best game, "Reapers" (Now renamed "Reapers Bridge"), to the Cards Against Humanity Tabletop Deathmatch competition. If I'm lucky, I'll get to go to Gen Con in Indianapolis and have my game judged. If I'm REALLY lucky, my game will be judged as the BEST and the folks at Cards Against Humanity will pay for my first printing and even sell my game at their booth!
Since I've never actually written out the instructions for this game before, I was surprised at how easy it all came out! And so here, to my best recollection, is what I wrote down... would y'all mind going over it and seeing if it makes sense? Maybe leave notes for editing and/or making the rules clearer? Thanks :)
ELEVATOR PITCH (Describe the game in 140 characters or less)
Reapers Bridge is a game that lets you and your friends tell lies about the dead and condemn their eternal souls to Heaven or Hell for points.
WHAT MAKES MY GAME SPECIAL
Being the best player with the most points doesn't mean that you'll automatically win, and it's just as possible that EVERYONE will win or lose.
WHAT YOU NEED TO PLAY
Three to Six players (though four is the optimal amount)
Two identical decks of ordinary playing cards INCLUDING the Joker cards
A pack of Post-It Notes
A few sharp pencils
INSTRUCTIONS
Reapers Bridge is a card game played by Grim Reapers to determine where the eternal souls go in the afterlife - Heaven or Hell, Light or Dark, Disneyland or Universal Studios - whatever you wish to believe in, The Grim Reapers are playing this game to determine if you go to the Good Place or the Bad Place.
The basic mechanic of the game is to get a point total on a soul that is EXACTLY 21 (no going over) while keeping track of and building on to the life story of that soul so you can claim it and send it to it's final reward.
First, each player takes a Post-It and a Pencil, and secretly writes down if they are "Good" or "Evil". Take that Post-It and keep it safely hidden till the end of the game, you won't need it till then (more about that later).
Determine who will go first in a way not dissimilar to those described in such classic board games as "Monopoly", "Yahtzee" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation Monopoly". Play will go clockwise from player to player as demonstrated in such classic card games as "Uno", "Poker", "Pinochle" and "Nightmare Before Christmas Uno".
Shuffle the two decks of cards together (including the Joker cards) and deal five cards to each player. DPlace the rest of the deck within easy reach of everyone, and designate an area for two piles of Post-It Notes that will be the "Good Pile" and the "Bad Pile" (more about that later).
Now that we have THAT straightened out, here is a list of what each of those cards in your hand means, which won't make much sense till you've read all the instructions but go ahead and read them now so you have it in mind and you can go "Ohhhh, OKAY! Now I get it!" later on.
END OF GAME (AKA "THE THREE WAYS THIS COULD POSSIBLY END")
The game ends once no one can play any more cards, or all the cards are gone. Yes, this may mean that some "Souls" are still on the table; those are Atheists and people who voted for Ralph Nader, they don't go to the Good Place OR the Bad Place and will not count for the End Game.
First, each player counts up their collected Post-It Notes from all the souls they collected. Keep that number in mind.
Next, count the number of cards (number cards and soul cards each count as 1) in the "Good" pile and compare it to the number of cards in the "Bad" pile; the pile with the highest total is the "Winning Team".
Remember those secret Post-It Notes we made before the game started, the ones that say either "Good" or "Evil" on them? Now is the time to reveal those Post-It Notes! Only players on the "Winning Team" will be able to win the game, unless everyone was secretly playing for the same team in which case everyone loses! Got it? If not, here's the four ways the game could end:
RULES CLARIFICATIONS
"Wait... how do Aces work?" - I know, it can be confusing. Here's an example that I hope helps: Joe plays an ace on "The Mailman" and says "Always had a bone for the dogs on his delivery route", making The Mailman be worth either 1 or 11 right now. Play moves to Jennifer who lays down a 3 of Diamonds on the mailman and says "He always made his deliveries on time and with a smile!", making The Mailman now worth EITHER 4 OR 14. Since the next player, Dave, has a 7 of Clubs in his hand, he says "He was always smiling because he had just had sex with that really slutty dog at the beginning of his delivery route". This not only defines the ambiguous "Always had a bone for the dogs" as being a pretty extreme thing worth 11 points, but it also makes The Mailman worth 21 points, thus ready to move on to the "Evil Pile".
"I'm playing for the Team Evil, so can I still claim souls for the Good Team?" - Yes, and you SHOULD claim them for the good team occasionally if you want to mess with their chances of being the Winning Team - A soul that's taken with an Ace and a 10 is only worth three points, and could really go far towards lowering their overall score!
"There's more than one Soul on the table, which one do I play my number cards on?" - You can play on ANY SOUL CARD ON THE TABLE, as long as your play does not make the total go over 21. You do not have to do them in the order that they were played, you do not have to play on just your own Soul Cards.
"I don't know anything about that person on the Soul Card in front of me, what do I do? - LIE. A big part of the fun is getting to make up lies about people your friends may idolize. For example, somebody may have put out "Ryan Seacrest" as one of the souls. You could say "Little known fact about Ryan... he once paid a school teacher $10,000 to eat a live kitten". You are a Reaper, you know things about these people that NOBODY knows and you may judge them accordingly!
"How are we supposed to keep track of all these Souls and what they did in their lives?" - It's a collaborative story building game, feel free to ask the other players for help remembering and then maybe try to build on the story because that makes it easier. "Ryan Seacrest once paid a school teacher $10,000 to eat a live kitten... For charity" is easier to remember than "Ryan Seacrest once paid a school teacher $10,000 to eat a live kitten" and "Ryan Seacrest gives a lot of money to charity". See how that works?
Okay, i think that about covers it and you SHOULD be able to play this. Please let me know if it's easy/hard to understand, if it should be arranged differently, any feedback is greatly appreciated thanks :)
Since I've never actually written out the instructions for this game before, I was surprised at how easy it all came out! And so here, to my best recollection, is what I wrote down... would y'all mind going over it and seeing if it makes sense? Maybe leave notes for editing and/or making the rules clearer? Thanks :)
ELEVATOR PITCH (Describe the game in 140 characters or less)
Reapers Bridge is a game that lets you and your friends tell lies about the dead and condemn their eternal souls to Heaven or Hell for points.
WHAT MAKES MY GAME SPECIAL
Being the best player with the most points doesn't mean that you'll automatically win, and it's just as possible that EVERYONE will win or lose.
WHAT YOU NEED TO PLAY
Three to Six players (though four is the optimal amount)
Two identical decks of ordinary playing cards INCLUDING the Joker cards
A pack of Post-It Notes
A few sharp pencils
INSTRUCTIONS
Reapers Bridge is a card game played by Grim Reapers to determine where the eternal souls go in the afterlife - Heaven or Hell, Light or Dark, Disneyland or Universal Studios - whatever you wish to believe in, The Grim Reapers are playing this game to determine if you go to the Good Place or the Bad Place.
The basic mechanic of the game is to get a point total on a soul that is EXACTLY 21 (no going over) while keeping track of and building on to the life story of that soul so you can claim it and send it to it's final reward.
First, each player takes a Post-It and a Pencil, and secretly writes down if they are "Good" or "Evil". Take that Post-It and keep it safely hidden till the end of the game, you won't need it till then (more about that later).
Determine who will go first in a way not dissimilar to those described in such classic board games as "Monopoly", "Yahtzee" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation Monopoly". Play will go clockwise from player to player as demonstrated in such classic card games as "Uno", "Poker", "Pinochle" and "Nightmare Before Christmas Uno".
Shuffle the two decks of cards together (including the Joker cards) and deal five cards to each player. DPlace the rest of the deck within easy reach of everyone, and designate an area for two piles of Post-It Notes that will be the "Good Pile" and the "Bad Pile" (more about that later).
- AFTER YOU DRAW A CARD TO BRING YOUR HAND UP TO 6 CARDS, YOUR TURN WILL BE ONE OF THESE THINGS
- If you have a Jack, Queen or King in your hand you must write a name for it on a Post-It Note, affix the note to the card and place it in the middle of the table so everyone can see it and play on it. Congratulations, you just put a Soul on the table!
- Play a Good or Evil "Things That Person Did In Their Life" number card on a Soul that is on the table, adding to their life story and trying to make the sum of all number cards equal exactly 21 (no going over). Once a soul has exactly 21 points on it, you get to claim the Post-It Note for your Victory Pile, and place all the cards (including the "Soul Card") in to the appropriate "Good" or "Evil" discard pile (if the final point was a Heart or Diamond, it goes to Good; Clubs and Spades go to Evil).
- If you do not have a soul to play, nor do you have any number cards that can be legally played (no souls on the table or no souls with a low enough total for you to play a card that would bring it to 21 or under), then you may simply pass to the next player. If all players pass, that usually means that the game is over (see "End Of Game").
Now that we have THAT straightened out, here is a list of what each of those cards in your hand means, which won't make much sense till you've read all the instructions but go ahead and read them now so you have it in mind and you can go "Ohhhh, OKAY! Now I get it!" later on.
- JACK, QUEEN and KING (Any Suit) These are the souls you will be trying to claim. If you have one in your hand on your turn, you MUST write who this person is on a Post-It Note, affix to the card and lay it on the table as your turn. Names could be any person or type of person living, fictional or dead - Mailman, Dentist, Joseph Hwang DDS, Oprah Winfrey, Mickey Mouse, whatever. As long as it can "die", you can take it's soul. Don't think about it to hard.
- 2 thru 10 of HEARTS and DIAMONDS These represent the GOOD THINGS a person may have done during their lifetime, on a scale of 2 to 10; "She never lied to her oral hygienist about how often she flossed her teeth" would be worth 2 points, "She volunteered at the free clinic every Wednesday to floss the teeth of the elderly and comatose patients in the leprosy ward" would be worth 10. Whatever you come up with for each point value will be open to debate amongst all the players, and the group may help you come up with an appropriate task for the point value you are trying to play.
- 2 thru 10 of SPADES and CLUBS These represent the BAD THINGS a person may have done during their lifetime, on a scale of 2 to 10; "She was never truthful to her oral hygienist about how often she actually flossed" would be worth 2 points, "She killed her oral hygienist in order to cover up her trail of lies about how much she actually flossed" would be worth 10. Whatever you come up with for each point value will be open to debate amongst all the players, and the group may help you come up with an appropriate task for the point value you are trying to play.
- ACE (any suit) The Aces are the AMBIGUITY CARDS, and must be a thing that the person did in their life that is ambiguous enough to be worth either 1 OR 11 points; "She loved animals", "Never killed anyone that didn't deserve it", "Wants to be just like OJ Simpson"... whatever it is, it will be up to WHOEVERS TURN IT IS CURRENTLY to determine if it is worth 1 or 11 points. See rules clarification section for an example of how this works if you're still confused.
- JOKER The Joker is a Trump Card that instantly lets you put a soul in to the Good or Bad pile (your choice) regardless of point total, but it's gotta be awesome and it's got to be definitively GOOD or BAD depending on where you want the soul to end up; "Saved the lives of a bus full of drowning orphans and puppies" would be good, "Told Hitler to do all that stuff to the Jews" would be bad.
END OF GAME (AKA "THE THREE WAYS THIS COULD POSSIBLY END")
The game ends once no one can play any more cards, or all the cards are gone. Yes, this may mean that some "Souls" are still on the table; those are Atheists and people who voted for Ralph Nader, they don't go to the Good Place OR the Bad Place and will not count for the End Game.
First, each player counts up their collected Post-It Notes from all the souls they collected. Keep that number in mind.
Next, count the number of cards (number cards and soul cards each count as 1) in the "Good" pile and compare it to the number of cards in the "Bad" pile; the pile with the highest total is the "Winning Team".
Remember those secret Post-It Notes we made before the game started, the ones that say either "Good" or "Evil" on them? Now is the time to reveal those Post-It Notes! Only players on the "Winning Team" will be able to win the game, unless everyone was secretly playing for the same team in which case everyone loses! Got it? If not, here's the four ways the game could end:
- EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH - As long as there is at least one player on "The Other Team", the one player on the Winning Team that has more souls collected than anyone else on the Winning Team WINS. They get to gloat and strut around all night long bragging about how much better (or worse) they are than everyone else, ESPECIALLY that other player who gathered more souls but was on the wrong team!
- THE RAPTURE - If all players were playing for The Good Team, congratulations! You brought along The Rapture, and now EVERYONE is good and EVERYONE wins and EVERYTHING is clouds and harps and boring as a month full of Sundays.
- ARMAGEDDON - If all players were playing for The Bad Team, congratulations! It's the Armageddon! Everyone LOSES, the gates of Hell are flung wide open, earthquakes and brimstone tear the landscape asunder, blood rains from the skies and everyone lives in an eternal Monday Morning After Saint Patrick's Day Weekend Hangover.
RULES CLARIFICATIONS
"Wait... how do Aces work?" - I know, it can be confusing. Here's an example that I hope helps: Joe plays an ace on "The Mailman" and says "Always had a bone for the dogs on his delivery route", making The Mailman be worth either 1 or 11 right now. Play moves to Jennifer who lays down a 3 of Diamonds on the mailman and says "He always made his deliveries on time and with a smile!", making The Mailman now worth EITHER 4 OR 14. Since the next player, Dave, has a 7 of Clubs in his hand, he says "He was always smiling because he had just had sex with that really slutty dog at the beginning of his delivery route". This not only defines the ambiguous "Always had a bone for the dogs" as being a pretty extreme thing worth 11 points, but it also makes The Mailman worth 21 points, thus ready to move on to the "Evil Pile".
"I'm playing for the Team Evil, so can I still claim souls for the Good Team?" - Yes, and you SHOULD claim them for the good team occasionally if you want to mess with their chances of being the Winning Team - A soul that's taken with an Ace and a 10 is only worth three points, and could really go far towards lowering their overall score!
"There's more than one Soul on the table, which one do I play my number cards on?" - You can play on ANY SOUL CARD ON THE TABLE, as long as your play does not make the total go over 21. You do not have to do them in the order that they were played, you do not have to play on just your own Soul Cards.
"I don't know anything about that person on the Soul Card in front of me, what do I do? - LIE. A big part of the fun is getting to make up lies about people your friends may idolize. For example, somebody may have put out "Ryan Seacrest" as one of the souls. You could say "Little known fact about Ryan... he once paid a school teacher $10,000 to eat a live kitten". You are a Reaper, you know things about these people that NOBODY knows and you may judge them accordingly!
"How are we supposed to keep track of all these Souls and what they did in their lives?" - It's a collaborative story building game, feel free to ask the other players for help remembering and then maybe try to build on the story because that makes it easier. "Ryan Seacrest once paid a school teacher $10,000 to eat a live kitten... For charity" is easier to remember than "Ryan Seacrest once paid a school teacher $10,000 to eat a live kitten" and "Ryan Seacrest gives a lot of money to charity". See how that works?
Okay, i think that about covers it and you SHOULD be able to play this. Please let me know if it's easy/hard to understand, if it should be arranged differently, any feedback is greatly appreciated thanks :)
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The best part, though, is that in having been forced in to actually writing down the rules of the game, I'm one step closer to just printing and trying to sell my own copies of the game :)
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