Spree: Variations Galore!

It's a popular game, that Spree!. Here are a few of the variants people have mailed to us. As if our own Hong Kong variant wasn't enough.

Spree: John Woo Variant

From: Rusty Ballinger, rusty@rlyeh.engr.sgi.com

The rules below are what I expected to find in the "Hong Kong Edition" of Spree. Using "Hard Boiled" as the standard by which all other movies must be judged, one might quickly derive the following rules:

- Always fire two guns at once. If both shots hit, the victim is knocked back by the greater hit, not by both hits. The shooter falls over only if both shots miss.

- Certain walls are marked as glass; you may jump through glass, but only if you immediately shoot at someone from the square on the other side. (Maybe the parking-lot side of squares 3 & 9 are glass, or maybe all walls are glass, etc.)

- You can shoot through walls. Each wall counts as 2 squares. So, for example, shooting from J to 4 needs a 4 or better to hit.

- You can't shoot through a square containing another player. (Remember the scene in the hospital where Maddog and the undercover guy have the patients between them.)

- Senseless Violence option: if you get shot & knocked over, you might be able to shoot your attacker on the way down. To hit, you must roll higher than the best roll the attacker hit you with. If you hit the attacker with either of your shots, the attacker is knocked down too, and neither of you gets a free turn. For example, Janet knocks Brad down with a 4; Brad knocks Janet down too if he rolls a 5, and pushes her back one space if he rolls a 6.

I'm still working on rules for lighting cigarettes, harassing coworkers, and dousing one's burning pants with a urinating infant; so far, my first draft requires two additional decks of cards and a laminated playing surface which can be easily disinfected. Each player also needs a lighter, a toothpick, and a distinctive pair of underwear.

--Rusty

Spree: KallistiMart Optional Rules

From: Jody Macgregor, jm@topend.com.au

"You can never have too many poorly playtested optional rules."

Hi,

I've been playing Spree! and although I love the game I couldn't help but tweak it a little, which being an egomaniac I thought I'd share. Firstly, I wanted to add detail to the items that you steal, so that it's not just "Jack of Hearts - 10 points." Second, and feel free to hate me for it, but I had to tweak shooting. So here they are . . .

Detailed Loot

Whenever you steal from a shop (not another player) with a face card, roll on the following table. Items that are not used immediately are kept until used or the next time you get shot, when you must discard one of them (player's choice). You still fall over.

1 Ladies' Lingerie: Lose a turn while you gaze in wide-eyed wonder (and somebody probably pops a cap in your butt).

2 Slurpie stash sugar-rush: You down one too many super slush-bunnies. Roll 3 dice on your next move. Act hyper-frenetic. One use only.

3 Guns and Ammo: You score a second gun. From now on you may re-roll any shot that misses, only falling down if the second shot also misses, in which case John Woo personally kicks your sorry ass and you lose the gun.

4 Cash stash: You score ten points immediately, which go straight in your car and may not be stolen. If shot, you do not lose these points.

5 Rocket Fuel: The next time you get in your car it moves immediately, and you may jump out next turn and move as normal. If you are playing Hong Kong rules, increase the car's speed any way you damn well please (4 dice is suggested). If you get shot on the way to your car, this is automatically the loot discarded (just don't light a match).

6 Skateboard: From now on you may add any one number card to your movement (imagine; pushing a shopping kart full of stolen goods, riding a skateboard, carrying a gun or two and steering with your teeth).

Optional options

Roll on the loot table only when you use a 6 or a 2 or an Ace.

Shooting Without Style

I know James Ernest loves his extra turns (that's what makes Kill Doctor Lucky so fiendishly brilliant), but in Spree! there is Another Way.

Shooting now takes one point off your movement, and does not end your turn (unless you miss, shoot yourself in the foot and fall over). The trick now is to shoot someone close enough that you can still steal their stuff, hoping not to push them back too far. Shoot people in dead ends you say? What a clever idea.

--

Jody Macgregor

http://www.topend.com.au/~jm/index.htm

Yet Another Variant for Spree!

From: Jaffer Batica, Loser1@rocketmail.com

Hello,

I just checked in on your website and I read the letters and I thought I might contribute.

I just bought Spree! a couple of days ago and me and my friends have been playing it well out since we first got it out of envelope. Our only real complaint (and it isn't really a complaint) is that when we play the board tends to shift around and we keep having to reposition it. I got around this by having it laminated at Kinkos for $3.00 and tax. It folds down back into the envelope real easy if you put about a little less than a quarter inch of space in between the sections of the board and then fold it and put some big heavy books on top of it for a while.

The rules expansion that my buddy Fuzz Sahin and I came up with is _Getaway Driver Rules_:

The idea is that your other pawn is now not only your car but your accomplice driving it - it is often quite a pain when you want to loot from one side of the Mall to the other but don't want to expose yourself to shootings or robbings on the way back to your car. So, the solution is, you get another guy to drive the car around to where you'll be to make getting back to the car a shorter trip. Of course, since you (as criminals) didn't think real far ahead for this excursion and you only brought guns and flashlights, you don't have walkie-talkies or anything so your driver often times ends up driving around aimlessly just looking for you. The rules we've come up with make the game slightly easier/slightly more complex depending on the player.

How it goes: _This new rule will require a 12-sided die_. Number the parking spaces around the Mall from 1 - 12. It doesn't really matter how they're numbered, but our method is to pick one and number them in order clockwise around the mall.

At the beginning of a player's turn (before the player rolls 2 dice for movement), roll the 12-sided die and move that player's car to the space indicated by that number. If the space is already occupied, re-roll. This roll does not occur on a turn when the player's primary pawn and car are in the same space, i.e. on the very first setup turn, a turn when the player has moved the car, and on the turn after the player has driven the car to a new space. When a player reaches his car, all normal rules for cashing in cards and spending a turn to drive the car still apply.

A player can now use a joker to have his accomplice drive the car to the unoccupied space of his choice and another player can play an ace or a joker played as an ace to prevent him from doing this. A player can also play a joker to send another player's car to the parking space of his choice; the same rules for aces apply. The same rules for cashing in cards still apply so if a player gets to his car, he cannot then leave it, loot again, move the car, and go back to it.

This rule can make wild looting sprees easier as you can loot all over and then have your car waiting at the nearest parking space, however, if you don't have any jokers (or if other people have jokers) it can make your spree much more _interesting_. I think this rule embraces the idea of the wild lack of coordination of the criminals involved in this looting enterprise. A movie that comes to mind would be 'Killing Zoe' or 'Lock, Stock, & 2 Smoking Barrels'.

Anyway, thanks a lot for designing the cheap games. We really enjoy them and usually play something like 4 or 5 games of Spree! in a row because they are so fast-paced and fun. I read your article on keeping core rules simple and I really dug it. Simplicity makes for interesting and creative extrapolation of the rules, like Chess and Risk varients. Me and the crew really enjoy your games and look forward to more of them in the future!

Yours,

Jaffer Batica

loser1@rocketmail.com