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CorporationA Change! Variant By Matthew Baldwin, mbaldwin@acesup.com Hey James: long time no see. Here's a Change! variant for you. It's been playtested about as much as the Cheapass Free Games are playtested, which is to say not at all. Well, we played it once and everyone wound up hating each other, which translates to "went pretty well" in my book. Anyhow, if you want to sic your playtesters on it and post it to your site as a variant, more power to you. I'm going to playtest it some more myself and post a regular-playing-card version of it to my own site (http://www.acesup.com) in May, with notes on how it was originally designed for Change! Assuming you don't mind the free plug. Matthew Premise: It takes money to make money. Each player will be putting up capital in anticipation of Profits. If you want the Big Bucks, though, you will have to form a Corporation with other players. A Corporation will new you Corporate Rewards if everyone cooperates -- but if any members defect (or if an outsider tries to horn in on the action) it's back to the drawing board. Before play: Give each player a set of five Change! cards, one of each denomination.(That's a 1, 3, 5, 7, and 10. -James) Play: On the first round, each person places a Change! card from his hand face down on the table. When everyone has played a card, they are all flipped face up. Anyone who played a card that is unmatched (i.e. no one else played a card of the same denomination) takes his card back into his hand and immediately scores Profits: a number of points equal to the value of the card. All the players who played matching cards form a Corporation. They do not score any points, and leave their matching cards face up in front of them to indicate who belongs to which Corporations. Multiple Corporations may be formed in the same round. Future rounds are played exactly the same, with one additional twist. If all the members of a Corporation (and only the members of the Corporation) play the same card, they all receive Corporate Rewards: a number of points equal to the value of the card played times the number of members in the Corporation. If, however, (a) any member of a Corporation plays a card different from the other members, or (b) if any person not in the Corporation plays the same card as the members, then no Corporate Rewards are given. Such a situation is treated just like a normal round: those who played singletons get Profits and everyone who played matching cards form (new) Corporations. Players who were previously in Corporations should take their old cards back into their hands. When the members of a Corporation gain Corporate Rewards, they subsequently form a new Corporation with the cards they played (and take the old ones back). So a turn goes like: 1) Everyone plays a card; 2) If all the members of a Corporation played the same card (and no outsiders played that denomination) they each get Corporate Rewards: (Card value) x (# of players); 3) Singletons get profits; matching cards form Corporations. Step 3 is always the same, regardless of what happens in step 2. Table Talk: Table talk (and lying, and betrayal) is allowed and encouraged. The one rule governing negotiations: all statements to other players must be "open": conducted so that all the other players can hear them. That means no whispering or going into another room. But if someone missed something because they weren't paying attention or were involved in another conversation, you are under no obligation to repeat anything. Winning: Play to a set number of points; 150 is good. Example Round: A plays 3, B plays 10, C plays 3, D plays 10, E plays 3. Result: Two Corporations form. A, C, E form a Corporation and leave their 3s face up to show this. B and D form a Corporation and leave their 10 cards face up to show this. Round: A=7, B=5, C=7, D=7, E=7 Result: B gets 5 points. A, C, E do not get Corporate Rewards because D played the same card as them. A, C, E take their 3 cards back into their hands, B and D take back their 10 cards. A, C, D and E now form a new Corporation and leave their 7 cards face up to indicate this. Round: A=5, B=10, C=5, D=5, E=5 Result: B gets 10 points. A, B, D, E get Corporate Rewards: 20 (5 x 4) points a piece. Everyone takes their cards back into their hands. Tips: Team up with a few other greedy plays to form Corporations and reap the big bucks, but if someone is pulling ahead don't hesitate to defect. Also, pay attention to what cards the members of a Corporation have in front of them, and bear in mind that they will be unable to play these cards on the next round. Conversely, form Corporations with low cards so you can use your high cards for Corporate Rewards. Dark Sourcesa Change! variant by Heiko "The Weasle" Wiese dedicated to Helmut "Birne" Kohl Story: The Politicians of the Ex-Government of Germany put a lot of money in dark chanels with help of a lot of confusing transfers. Now it is your turn to keep control of this. Try if you can follow your own transfers and that of the other politicians or if you become confused and get a "blackout" in your mind. Object of the game: The player with the highest amount of money wins. Start of the game: Each player gets exactly the same hand: one of each domination, 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10. Each player puts his money face up in a row on the table. How to play: Starting with the owner of the game, play will proceed to the left. On each turn the active player changes one own card with a card of another player. Both cards are turned face down (you may of course also change cards that are already face down). The game continues until all cards are face down. The player with the highest score on the table wins the game. Important: You may not look for the score of a card if it is face down, even if it is yours! So you have to remember where you place the high cards. Winning: After all cards are face down, count the value of the cards in front of you. The player with the highest score wins. Strategy: Watch where the 10s are going and try to catch them. You can control the length of the game if you change a face up and a face down card or two face down cards... the game then takes one move more til it's end. Author: Heiko "The Weasle" Wiese, Ottenstr. 20, D-30451 Hannover, e-mail:Das-Wiesel@gmx.de Games published: |
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