A Game of Requirements (Please Playtest)

[Frylock]

I am about ready to print rudimentary prototypes of this thing and need a wider pool of playtesters than I have available to me here where I am. Please let me know, after reading this ruleset, if you’re interested! If so we’ll pm addresses etc and I’ll send it to you.

Ambitiously, I have dreams of putting the prototype on [REMOVED] but I haven’t really looked into how hard or easy that would be.

Here is a link to the file: [REMOVED]

And here is the text as it currently stands (file could be revised from this over time). The pasted version here loses some formatting and most bolding and italics from the original.

Even if you aren’t up for playtesting the thing, I’m interested in hearing all thoughts and feelings concerning what you see here.

A GAME OF REQUIREMENTS
A quick light bluffing and push your luck game for two players

Introduction: A tile is laid. This is the Requirement. Perhaps a player has what it takes to meet the requirement. This is an Accomplishment! But if no player can meet the requirement, then the Spectacle begins. Players now Viciously Lie to each other until someone is fooled. In the end, whoever has Accomplished the most, with the greatest Spectacle, shall win the Game of Requirements. All other players are to be pitied.
Playing time: 15 minutes
Number of players: 2
Ages: 12 and up? Iunno.
Mechanics: Push Your Luck, Bidding, Bluffing, Multiplicative Scoring

COMPONENTS
• Seven Traits. Traits are not a component per se, but an element of most other components. There are seven traits: Moxie, Spunk, Cheek, Verve, Guts, Focus, and Pluck. Each trait is represented by a different emblem. [Do not fret over the differences between these traits. You will know when they are Required!]

• Twenty-eight Tiles. Each tile has one blank face, and one face depicting exactly two traits (possibly two copies of the same trait).

• Twenty-eight Coins. Each coin has a single trait depicted on each side—possibly the same trait depicted on both sides.

• One first-player marker.

SETUP

1. Form the Requirement Stack:
   Shuffle all the tiles face down, and create a single stack with them.

2. Form the Pool of Lies:
   Blindly shake all the coins in a bag or box, and lay them out (again blindly) in single layer near the tile stack. Without looking at the hidden face of any coin, stack all coins with matching exposed faces together. This will form exactly seven stacks of coins, one for each Trait. Stack heights will vary from one to seven.

3. Each player should reserve an area near him for his Trait Reserve.
   This area will come to be populated with coins from the Pool of Lies as the game progresses.

4. Be sure each player has space for a number of Accomplishments.
   An Accomplishment is a stack of tiles. The height of an Accomplishment is its Greatness. During the course of the game, Accomplishments may come to be adorned with coins. The number of coins on an Accomplishment determines how Spectacular that Accomplishment is. At the end of the game, a player’s score will be determined both by how Great and how Spectacular his Accomplishments are.

5. Set aside an area of the table to contain the Pile of Failed Requirements
   When the players fail collectively to meet a Requirement, the representative tile will be placed here. This pile functions as an end-game timer, as will be explained in more detail later.

6. Set aside an area to contain discarded coins.
   When coins are discarded, they are placed in the discard area, visible to both players, with the same side face-up and the same side hidden as had been while the coin was still in play.
   GAMEPLAY

7. The players proceed through several rounds (as described below), until there are five tiles in the in the Pile of Failed Requirements. At that point, the game immediately ends, and the score is counted! (See Game End below.)

8. Rounds have two phases, in order: the Receptive Phase, then the Deceptive Phase. (Some rounds will not reach the Deceptive Phase.) Whenever a round ends, the first player marker changes hands and a new round begins. What follows are step by step descriptions of these two phases.

Receptive Phase

In this phase, each player will have one, and only one, opportunity to meet the Requirement depicted on a tile, using traits from their reserve. (They might have exactly the required traits, or they may need to use their traits in combination according to certain rules described below.) If either player meets the Requirement, the round ends. If neither does, then the round proceeds to the Deceptive phase.
9. The round’s first player takes a tile from the Requirement Stack, turns it face up, and places it between the two players. In this way, the players receive the round’s Requirement.

10. The first player now determines whether he can (and wishes to) Meet the current Requirement (see rule 11 for an explanation of how to do this).
    a. If he meets it, then the round ends.
    b. But if he doesn’t meet it, the second player then has an opportunity to meet the Requirement instead. Again, if they do so, the round ends.
    c. If (and only if) neither meets the Requirement, the round proceeds to the Deceptive phase (see below).

11. To meet a Requirement is to trade in a set of coins for the Requirement tile. The coins come from the player’s Trait Reserve. When it comes to meeting requirements during this phase, only the exposed side of the coins is relevant. The coins that can be used to meet a Requirement are determined by the traits depicted on the Requirement tile. If the player has coins showing both those traits, those are the only two coins he needs to trade in! However even if he is lacking either or both of these exact traits, he may still be able to meet the requirement using the following rules:
    a. Two matching traits may be substituted for any other trait
    b. Three un-matching traits may be substituted for any fourth trait.
    On meeting the Requirement, the player adds it to one of his accomplishments. The selected accomplishment must show, on its topmost tile, a trait that matches one of the traits depicted on the Requirement. If the player has no such accomplishment, he may begin a new accomplishment by simply placing the Requirement tile on the table in his Accomplishments area alongside the others.

Deceptive Phase
This phase occurs only if neither player met the Requirement during the Receptive phase. Having failed, players now must pull coins from the Pool of Lies in hopes of finding a match for the Requirement—or fooling the opponent into thinking it’s been done. A player who pulls this off wins the Requirement and adds it to his Accomplishments—with added Spectacle!

12. Starting with the first player, players take turns bidding for the tile on offer. (This is optional. If a player declines to bid, play passes to the other player.) To bid, a player selects a coin whose face-up side matches one of the Requirement’s two depicted traits (or both if the Requirement depicts the same trait twice), and places that coin in that player’s bid area. (This coin may be selected from the player’s own Trait Reserve, or from the Pool of Lies.) When making this bid, the player may look at the hidden side of the coin, and may say “It’s Done!”, in which case the player is designated “claimant” and his claim is resolved (see 14 below).

13. Should both players consecutively decline—or be unable—to bid, then they have failed to meet the Requirement! The tile is moved to the Pile of Failed Requirements and the round ends. Existing bids remain in play!

14. Resolving a claim: The claimant is claiming that the coin he just played into his bid is an exact match to the tile on offer, its two sides showing both traits depicted on the Requirement. If this claim goes unchallenged, the claimant wins the Requirement (see below). If, however, the opposing player challenges the claim, then the claimant must either prove the coin is in fact an exact match, or else decline to do so. If he proves the match, then the claimant takes one of the challenger’s bid coins (placing it into his own supply), and wins the Requirement. Meanwhile, if the claimant declines to prove the match, then the challenging player takes one of the claimant’s bid coins (placing it into his own supply), and wins the Requirement. Once the claim has been resolved, the round ends.

15. Winning the Requirement: When a player wins a Requirement during the Deceptive Phase,
    a. He takes the tile
    b. He finds an accomplishment of his which depicts, on its topmost tile, a trait identical to one of those on the tile he has just won. If he finds one, he removes the coins from it, adds his new tile to that accomplishment, and replaces the coins. If he found no such accomplishment, he simply begins a new accomplishment using his new tile.
    c. He selects any number of coins from his bid—so long as all of the selected coins match exactly (only exposed sides count)—and adds Spectacle to his accomplishments by placing those coins on top of the accomplishment he just created or added to.
    d. He moves the remaining coins from his bid to his reserve. They were lies. Now they are traits.
    e. The opposing player also moves all remaining coins from his bid to his reserve.

GAME END
16. The game ends immediately when the fifth tile is placed on the failure pile.

17. The players now count their score as follows. Each of the players’ Accomplishments has Greatness and Spectacle. The Greatness is simply the number of tiles in the accomplishment. The Spectacle is the number of coins on top of it. To calculate the value of an Accomplishment, simply multiply its Greatness by its Spectacle. (An Accomplishment may end up with no Spectacle, in which case it is worth zero points) To calculate the player’s score, simply sum the values of all his Accomplishments.

18. The player with the highest score wins. In case of a tie, no one wins and both players are to be pitied.

[Idle_Thoughts]

I hate to seem like a hard ass, because I’m sure it’s a fun game, but with this sort of thing, you really should ask for permission first before linking to your game and asking for playtesters, because it’s a form of spam.

Obviously I know you aren’t a spammer and only here to do that, but it still is a call to action to further your own personal cause and we just ask you ask permission first, so I’ve taken out the links and am going to close this down for now.