Clive/VogonZendo

Objective

Draft cards and create as convuluted a "summary" as possible of the game's rules, without being caught out by the other players.

Game components

A 5*5 square board
Pieces in red, yellow, green and blue
A small number of physically smaller "anti-pieces" in each colour.
Scoring tokens
A deck of "official rules" cards
A deck of "clause" cards
A stock of "glue" cards

Start

Draw one "official rules" card at random and place it face-up by the board.
Shuffle the clauses.
Deal 7 to each player.

Draft

Choose one of the cards in your hand.
Either take it face-down in front of you, or discard it face-down back to the deck.
Pass the remainder of your hand to the left, take cards from the player to your right.
Repeat until nobody has a hand any more.

Summarise

Play all the clause cards you've taken, face up in front of you to form a syntax tree. You may take as many "and", "or" and "not" glue cards as you like from the central supply to help you.

You want your "summary" to:

Be as confusing as possible to the other players
Prohibit as few legal plays as possible
Use as many clause cards as possible

Having constructed their "summary", each player takes one scoring token per clause it contains.

Play

The start player (TBD) goes first and they take turns clockwise.

Each person on their turn should either attempt a positive play or claim they have no permitted positive play.

If it is agreed they have no permitted positive play, they should either attempt a negative play or claim they have no permitted negative play either.

If it is agreed they have no permitted positive or negative plays, they pass.

If a player must ever pay the bank or another player, and has no scoring tokens left, nothing happens.

Positive plays

A positive play is the placing of a piece of any colour in a space on the board that currently contains no piece. (Any anti-pieces in that space become irrelevant and can be removed.)

A positive play is "permitted" if it is legal by both the official rules and the current player's own summary of the rules.

If a player attempts a play that is not permitted, they lose a point, take back the move and try again (make a positive play or say they have no permitted positive play).

If the player believes they have no permitted positive play, they declare this. Any other player who disagrees may suggest a play. If the proposal is not permitted, that other player loses one point. If any proposals are permitted, the player who thought they had no play loses a point and must make one of the proposed moves.

Once a permitted positive play has been made, if the play is illegal by someone else's summary, the current player takes a point from that other player. It's possible to take points from more than one other player with a single play.

Negative plays

A negative play is the placing of an anti-piece of any colour in a space on the board that currently contains no piece, and no anti-piece of that colour.

A negative play is "permitted" if the corresponding positive play would be illegal by both the official rules and the current player's own summary of the rules.

If a player attempts a play that is not permitted, they lose a point, take back the move and try again (make a negative play or say they have no permitted negative play).

If the player believes they have no permitted negative play, they declare this. Any other player who disagrees may suggest a play. If the proposal is not permitted, that other player loses one point. If any proposals are permitted, the player who thought they had no play loses a point and must make one of the proposed moves.

Once a permitted negative play has been made, if the play is legal by someone else's summary, the current player takes a point from that other player. It's possible to take points from more than one other player with a single play.

End

The game ends when all players pass consecutively. The player with the most points is the winner.

Sample official rules

All plays are legal
Red and blue cannot be adjacent; yellow and green cannot be adjacent
Only blue pieces can be adjacent to blue pieces
Red pieces must be adjacent to exactly three other pieces
No piece can be North or South of a yellow piece
etc.

Sample clause cards

Red
Yellow
Green
Blue
Piece (any colour)
_ North of _
_ West of _
_ Adjacent to _
_ and vice-versa
Exactly _ of _
At least _ of _
0
1
2
3
4