Article II, updated

-4 players


This game happens in two phases--Primary Election and General Election. Each phase, each player will draw a hand of cards, and the phase ends when every player has played all of his or her cards. The winner of the General Election wins the game.


In a two player game, go through both phases as normal, but obviously the two players automatically become the Candidates.


Play order:


In each phase, each player draws seven cards. Randomly determine a starting player. Each player takes turns playing one card each until the hands are exhausted. A card may be played on any player, including the one playing the card.


Affiliation and Electability:


Cards may affect one of two attributes of a player (or do other things according to their text). A player's Electability governs that player's general appeal to the populace, while Affiliation indicates how close that player is to their own party's base. Electabilty is always beneficial, but Affiliation has different effects in the Primary Election than in the General Election.


Candidate Styles:


Some cards apply a Style to a candidate.  You may play these on yourself or on other players, and they replace any existing style.  Styles apply modifiers to attributes or allow other effects.  If a Style changes one of your attributes to zero, then no other modifiers apply.


Phases:


After the Primary Election, add your Affiliation to your Electability. The two players with the highest total are their parties' Candidates. Remaining players are known as Spoilers.


After the General Election, subtract your Affiliation from your Electability. The Candidate with the highest positive total becomes President (and wins the game). If neither Candidate has a positive total, the Spoiler with the highest Electability (ignoring Affiliation) becomes President.


Cards:


Tack Center (x4)
"I believe that you misheard me. I meant to say that I am against taxes."
+4 Electability
-3 Affiliation


Toe the Line (x4)
"We must take things away from people we don't like and give them to people we do!"
-3 Electability
+5 Affiliation


Steal Their Position (x2)
"If you'll just check my record, you'll find that I've never not voted against that thing you hate."
+6 Electability
-5 Affiliation


Slam Your Fellows (x2)
"Everyone else on this stage is a ninny."
+3 Electability
-3 Affiliation


Targeted by a Negative Ad (x2)
"'If elected, I will murder babies' 'Did I really say that?' 'You may have been drunk, sir.'"
-3 Electability


Unaffiliated Activity
"We're not coordinating, A-WINK"
Draw two cards


Sister Soulja Moment (x2)
"Certain members of my party suck"
+7 Electability
-7 Affiliation


Gaffe (x2)
"I am the only anti-unicorn candidate in this race"
-3 Electability
-3 Affiliation


True Blue (x2)
"I agree with my party in every way"
+5 Affiliation


Civil Debate (x2)
"Man, I LOVE you guys"
+3 Affiliation


Uncivil Debate (x2)
"My opponent hates dogs"
-3 Electability


Strange Pronouncement (x2)
"Sure, I believe in UFOs"
+2 Affiliation


Party Endorsement (x2)
"My party member is obviously the best to lead our nation!"
+5 Affiliation


Newspaper Endorsement (x3)
"Dude, this guy rocks" - High Times
+3 Electability


Policy Proposal (x3)
"Everyone should get nifty things"
+3 Affiliation


Voter ADHD (x4)
"The average citizen has the same memory as a gold- hey, what's that over there?"
Remove one card from play


Screaming Partisan
Style
While a Screaming Partisan, your Affiliation is doubled.


Outsider Candidate
Style
While an Outsider, your Affiliation is zero, and you may not play cards on other players that would decrease their Affiliation.


Insider Candidate
Style
While an Insider, your Electability is halved, but you may play two cards each turn, then draw one card.


Great Debater
Style
When someone plays a card on you, you may immediately play a card on them, then draw a card.


The Mudslinger
Style
Subtract your Affiliation from everyone's Electability


The Necromancer
Style
In the General Election, subtract the other Candidate's Affiliation from your Electability instead of your own.


The Lesser Evil
Style
Your Affiliation is zero


The Greater Evil
Style
Your opponents' Affiliation is zero


The Highlander
Style
As a Spoiler, you may still participate in the General Election as if you were a Candidate


The Hairpiece
Style
Your Style has no effects


Third-Party Candidate
Style
Ignore all effects of Affiliation, even from other Candidates. Your Affiliation is zero.


The Teflon Wonder
Style
Before playing a card, you may remove a card that's been played on you


Variation:


Divide the four players into two parties, and count points. When a player becomes a Candidate, that player gets a point, and when a player is elected President, that player gains two points and other party members gain one. After four games, the player with the most points wins.‚

Socialism

In this game, each of the players takes on the role of a social networking site. The goal is to be the first to "fill your quota" by adding fifteen new members to your site. You'll accomplish this by playing cards that represent members of the digerati, and then "inviting" them to join. Each player will have fiteen colored chits to place on their site members, and the first to run out wins the game.

You'll need:

The cards listed below - if you're making your own, I recommend half-sized index cards.
15 colored tokens for each player - poker chips work, but are a little large. Glass stones are ideal.
One six-sided die.
2-5 players
1-2 hours

To play:

Determine the first player randomly, have everyone draw a three-card hand, and then proceed clockwise. During a turn, each player will:

1. Draw a card

2. Play a card

3. Invite members to join their network (this step is optional)

Drawing Cards

Surely, this is obvious? Remove the top card from the deck. When the deck is empty, shuffle the discards back in and continue play if the game is still in progress.

Playing Cards

Each card represents either an Action or a User. To play an Action, merely lay it down, follow the instructions on the card, and then discard it.

Users are more complicated. The first User played simply goes in the center of the table. Second and subsequent Users must be played adjacent to one or more cards already in play. Users are Friends of adjacent User cards, and adjacency counts on both sides and corners. Thus, one User can have up to eight Friends in play.

Inviting Members

During the Invitation phase, you have a few basic options, any of which may be modified by card text:

You may automatically invite a User that you just played to join your network. Provided that User was played this turn, this is an automatic invitation; place one of your colored tokens on the card, and that person joins your network as a Member.

You may spam invite any User in play. To do so, select the user, and roll a die. On a 6, place one of your colored tokens on the card, and that User joins your network as a Member.

One of your current Members may personally invite up to two of their Friends. Select the Member, and the Friends, and then roll a die for each invitation. On a 4, 5 or a 6, place one of your colored tokens on the card, and that Friend joins your network as a Member.

Winning

Play continues until one player has exhausted all twenty tokens, and thus completed their social network.

Cards

Users:

Sheila Callingworth
Shiela will personally invite an additional Friend, for up to three invitations.

Billy Luddite
Billy hates e-mail, and will only personally invite one Friend before getting frustrated and shutting his computer off.

Agnse Smtih
Agnse will personally invite all of her Friends whenever asked to, but her horribly-spelled messages are only accepted on a roll of a 5 or 6.

THE AVENGATOR
THE AVENGATOR hates everyone and everything. He never personally invites anyone, and never accepts personal invitations.

Debbie Webceleb
Debbie always accepts personal invitations.

Phillip Connoisseur
Connoisseur only accepts personal invitations on a 5 or 6, and never accepts spam invitations. However, Friends that he personally invites accept on a 3, 4, 5, or 6, unless contradicted by their own text.

Fa3ryAlly
Fa3ryAlly accepts all invitations.

Hater McFriendless
Hater never accepts personal invitations.

Becca Singleton
Becca will only be a Member of one site at a time. When she accepts any invitation, discard all other tokens from her card.

Jimmy Block
Jimmy can convince Friends to leave networks he's not part of. During the invitation phase, instead of having him personally invite Friends, you may try to remove a token color that isn't also on Jimmy's card from one Friend. This is successful on a 4, 5, or 6.

Alan Sudo/Gerald Sock
Alan/Gerald maintains two separate identities. Each may be invited separately, and he may have two tokens of each color on his card. Alan and Gerald do not count as Friends of each other, but both count as Friends of all adjacent cards.

John Smith (4 copies)
(no text)

Rachel Lurk
Rachel never announces her presence by personally inviting her Friends.

Alan Dale
Alan's music gives him a greater social depth.  He may personally invite Friends of his Friends.

Mary Su
Mary's constant online presence and understanding of the mechanics of her networks allow her to personally invite all of her Friends at once.

Sloan Jenkins
Sloan uses Super-logout: if you cause her to leave all of her social networks, she goes in your hand.

Lola Lowinfo
Lola always accepts spam invitations, but never accepts personal invitations.


Actions:


Stellar Status (4 copies)
Select a User on your network.  That user's status message for the day is so compelling that everyone adjacent will join your network, as well.


Viral Post
Select a User on your network. Put a Viral Post token on that user. At the beginning of each turn, Viral Post moves to a new user, who joins your network.

Lost Password (2 copies)
Remove a user from the board.  If this breaks the board into two or more unconnected sets of users, invitations can no longer cross from one set to another until a new user reconnects them.

OMG CAT PIC (2 copies)
Select a user on your network, who posts a cat picture.  All of that user's Friends who are also on your network immediately send personal invitations to all of their friends so that they can see the adorable cat picture.

A/S/L? (2 copies)
Select a user.  An adjacent user leaves all of that user's networks.

IPO
Your network goes public, generating a great deal of buzz, but changing the focus from users to making money. Roll once for each User in play, each of whom joins your network on a 6. Leave this card in front of you. From now on, your network's personal invitations are only accepted on a 6 unless affected by other card text.

New feature (2 copies)
Photo tagging? Video chat? Music sharing? Whatever it is, people want it.  Leave this card in front of you.  While there, your invitations are accepted on a 1 in addition to any other numbers.

Change of Management
Shakeups at the top make a network into something completely different.  Remove an action card from play.

SMTP Block List (2 copies)
Play this card in front of a player. As long as it's there, that player may not spam invite users.

The greatest form of flattery
Pick an action card in play.  The greatest form of flattery copies its text and acts as the original card.

Sherman Act
Play this card out of turn to cancel another card as it is played.  Both this card and the canceled card go to the discard pile.

Industrial Espionage
You've stolen another network's user list! Choose another network and spam invite all of its users.

The Virtues of the Drake, update II

Revised rules for the first game I posted. I plan to go back to making use of this blog, so you should both expect me to update more often and yell at me if I don't.

The Virtues of the Drake

This is a card game for two to four players. Each of you takes the role of one "virtue" of an evil dragon. As dragons have a different value system than humans, their virtues would seem, to us, sins. The players will each play one of Gluttony, Greed, Wrath or Pride. As dragons eat maidens, Gluttony and Lust coincide, Envy only applies to other dragons, and Sloth wins when you don't play the game--so keep that in mind the next time that you decide what to do at a party.

The game is played entirely with communal cards, because all players are ultimately different aspects of the same creature. Your resources comprise:

Three decks of cards

• A deck of Maidens that the nearby townsfolk will feed you (the Dragon) for appeasement.
• A deck of Knights that will attempt (futilely) to protect the (mostly) fair (mostly) Maidens from you (the Dragon)
• A deck of wondrous Treasures carried by the Knights who come to fight you... the Dragon

Four locations, and the cards in them

• The area immediately outside your lair, referred to as "in play" which can have up to one Maiden tied to a stake and one Knight (failing) to protect (usually) her at a time
• A Gullet, which will fill up with delicious Maidens
• A Lair, which you will adorn with the crispy corpses of failed Knights
• A Bed, made up of a pile of Treasures earned by defeating Knights

Four Virtue cards, which you'll pick from to determine your Virtue for the game

To start the game, shuffle all the decks, then place them in a triangle in the center of the table. The area in the middle is "in play", while discards will be placed next to their respective decks outside this area. Shuffle the Virtue cards and hand one to each player (in a two player game, set Pride aside first). Those players will place the cards in front of them; remaining cards should be set, face up, to the side.

Place the top card from the Maidens deck to the right of Gluttony; this forms the Gullet. Likewise, place the top Knight next to Wrath to start the Lair and the top Treasure next to Greed to start the Bed. The Gullet, Lair, and Bed all fill in from left to right; the most recently added card should be place to the right of the last card.

Randomly determine a player to go first, and then rotate clockwise from that player on each turn. A player's turn comprises two phases:

1. Playing the top card of a deck of that player's choice. To play a card from a deck, do one of the following
• You may always play a Maiden or a Knight, provided there is no corresponding card in play. Only one Maiden and one Knight may be in play, barring card effects.
• To play a Treasure, flip the top card and compare its Value to the rightmost Knight's Wealth. If the Wealth is equal or higher, the Knight's pockets are not yet exhausted and nothing happens in the Lair. If the Value is higher than the Wealth, you've torn that Knight apart trying to find the Treasure; discard the rightmost Knight from the Lair. Either way, the Treasure goes onto your Bed.
2. Performing an action. An action is either:
• Swallowing a Maiden. This can be done automatically, but only if there is no Knight in play to protect the Maiden.
• Breathing fire on a Knight. To do this, compare the Knight's Strength to the Chastity of the righmost Maiden in the Gullet (more Chaste Maidens generate hotter fire). If the Maiden's Chastity is equal or higher, she stays in the Gullet, but if it's less than the Knight's Strength, discard the Maiden. Either way, you still defeat the Knight (you are a Dragon, after all). Move the Knight to the Lair.
• Performing an action that is listed on a card. These will instruct you to do something "as an action.

Continue playing turns in order, until one player wins. Each player is attempting to reach a different win condition:

• Gluttony will win if the Dragon's Gullet ever contains seven Maidens, satisfying its hunger
• Wrath will win if the Dragon's Lair ever contains seven Knights, satisfying its bloodlust
• Greed will win if the Dragon's Bed ever contains seven Treasures, satisfying the Dragon's desire for wealth
• Pride is attempting to stalemate the other Virtues, and will win if any of the decks is ever exhausted before one of the other Virtues wins.

Keep in mind, a Virtue that is not represented by a player can still accidentally win the game.

In the next post, I will detail the stats for each of the cards. Eventually, we'll be posting a PDF of those cards, and if there's enough interest there will be a full-artwork PDF with art by Cappysay available for a small fee. In the meantime, if you'd like to test the game, I recommend writing out the cards on index cards (using different colors for each deck). If you test it, and get back to me with some feedback, I'll credit you when I publish the thing, and may even tribute you in a card when I expand the decks a bit.

Article II

2-4 players

This game happens in two phases--Primary Election and General Election. Each phase, each player will draw a hand of cards, and the phase ends when every player has played all of his or her cards. The winner of the General Election wins the game.

In a two player game, go through both phases as normal, but obviously the two players automatically become the Candidates.

Play order:

In each phase, each player draws seven cards. Randomly determine a starting player. Each player takes turns playing one card each until the hands are exhausted. A card may be played on any player, including the one playing the card.

Affiliation and Electability:

Cards may affect one of two attributes of a player (or do other things according to their text). A player's Electability governs that player's general appeal to the populace, while Affiliation indicates how close that player is to their own party's base. Electabilty is always beneficial, but Affiliation has different effects in the Primary Election than in the General Election.

Phases:

After the Primary Election, add your Affiliation to your Electability. The two players with the highest total are their parties' Candidates. Remaining players are known as Spoilers.

After the General Election, subtract your Affiliation from your Electability. The Candidate with the highest positive total becomes President (and wins the game). If neither Candidate has a positive total, the Spoiler with the highest Electability (ignoring Affiliation) becomes President.

Cards:

Tack Center (x8)
"I believe that you misheard me. I meant to say that I am against taxes."
+4 Electability
-3 Affiliation


Toe the Line (x8)
"We must take things away from people we don't like and give them to people we do!"
-3 Electability
+5 Affiliation


Steal Their Position (x4)
"If you'll just check my record, you'll find that I've never not voted against that thing you hate."
+6 Electability
-5 Affiliation


Slam Your Fellows (x4)
"Everyone else on this stage is a ninny."
+3 Electability
-3 Affiliation


Targeted by a Negative Ad (x4)
"'If elected, I will murder babies' 'Did I really say that?' 'You may have been drunk, sir.'"
-3 Electability


Sister Soulja Moment (x2)
"Certain members of my party suck"
+7 Electability
-7 Affiliation


Gaffe (x2)
"I am the only anti-unicorn candidate in this race"
-3 Electability
-3 Affiliation


True Blue (x2)
"I agree with my party in every way"
+5 Affiliation


Civil Debate (x2)
"Man, I LOVE you guys"
+3 Affiliation


Uncivil Debate (x2)
"My opponent hates dogs"
-3 Electability


Strange Pronouncement (x2)
"Sure, I believe in UFOs"
+2 Affiliation


Party Endorsement (x2)
"My party member is obviously the best to lead our nation!"
+5 Affiliation


Newspaper Endorsement (x3)
"Dude, this guy rocks" - High Times
+3 Electability


Policy Proposal (x3)
"Everyone should get nifty things"
+3 Affiliation


Voter ADHD (x8)
"The average citizen has the same memory as a gold- hey, what's that over there?"
Remove one card from play


Variation:

Divide the four players into two parties, and count points. When a player becomes a Candidate, that player gets a point, and when a player is elected President, that player gains two points and other party members gain one. After four games, the player with the most points wins.

Updated Rules: Virtues of the Drake

The play order is strictly: Pride, Greed, Wrath, Gluttony

If the game ends in a stalemate of any sort, Pride wins.

If a Virtue that is not in play wins, shuffle the discards back into the deck. This only happens once per Virtue.

The Sangria All now has the text: Discard the Sangria All to shuffle all discards back into their decks.