Standoff (card game)

From Ludocity
Standoff (card game)
Mexicanstandoff.jpg
Designer: Kevan Davis
Year: unknown
Players: 5 to 13.
Stuff required: Some numbered cards; playing cards are perfect. Some sort of money tokens. Optional water pistols.
Crew required: One narrator.
Preparation: Five minutes.
Time required: Ten minutes upward.
Place required: Enough room for everyone to stand in a circle.
Activities: Bluffing, deduction.
This is a playable game - it's finished, tested and ready to play.
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This game is made available under an Attribution-Noncommercial Creative Commons licence. (What does this mean?)

You robbed the bank and made the cleanest of getaways, but should maybe have agreed in advance how to split the money. As the police sirens approach, it's a time for snap decisions, persuasive arguments and unflinching water-pistol standoffs.

Narrator instructions

You'll need a set of numbered cards, running from one to the number of players. If you've got a deck of playing cards, that's perfect - just separate out one suit, and cut it down to the number of players (with aces low). If you haven't, then index cards or scraps of paper will work fine.

If you've got water pistols or other fake firearms, give everyone a gun. It's up to you whether they're loaded or not. If you haven't got any props, players can just use finger-guns.

Separate the money tokens into piles of twelve - each token represents (say) a thousand dollars, and each round will have a $12,000 haul. It's up to you how many rounds you want to play, but six or seven seems enough.

Each round, you'll put $12,000 out on the floor or table, and give everyone a random card. You'll announce the end of each round at a dramatically appropriate moment (if the players are deep in discussion, leave them to it, but if they're getting out of hand, getting listless, or all seem to be frozen in steely-eyed determination, then call the end of the round), call out the numbers in turn to see who shoots who, divide up the money to the survivors, and then collect everyone's cards back for the next round.

Player instructions

Standoff proceeds through a series of rounds, each round representing a successful heist. You've made your getaway and parked up in an abandoned warehouse, and have to decide how to split up the suitcase of money. You're all still carrying your guns, and you're all hoping to come out of this with a little more money than everyone else - whoever has the most cash at the end of the game is the winner.

You've been given a card with a number on it. This represents your reaction speed during this round of post-heist negotiations, and determines the order in which you shoot. If you've got the ace, you'll shoot first. If you've got the seven (in a game of seven players), you'll shoot last.

The round starts with players discussing how to split the money. At the end of the round, the money will be split between everyone who's still still standing in the warehouse. If anybody wishes to lend a little more force to their argument, or maybe increase their share of the loot by reducing the number of people who are splitting it, they can pull their gun and point it at someone. If anyone feels that the situation's going badly for them, they can make a run for it by leaving the playing area - they won't get any money, but they won't get shot either. (Once you've fled, you can't come back until next round.)

The narrator will look on, and at some point will announce that the round is coming to an end. A few seconds later, they will shout "Bang!".

At this point, everyone gets to fire, in the increasing order of their card numbers. The narrator calls out each number in turn - if the player with that number is pointing their gun at someone, their target is shot, and must fall to the ground. If you fall to the ground, then you're out for the rest of the round, and don't get to fire. (If you fled the warehouse, you don't get to fire, but can't be fired at either.)

When all the numbers have been called, one or more players will be left standing. The $12,000 is split equally between everyone who wasn't shot and didn't flee (any leftover notes go into the haul for the next heist), and the round ends.

In the next round, anyone who was shot has to sit the round out - they are recovering from their wounds, and did not attend the heist.

Play history

Standoff first ran at Sandpit Games at Duty Free in July 2008, with empty waterpistols and counterfeit thousand-dollar bills in the back alleys of Stoke Newington.