Stag and Hare

Stag and Hare is a Soho Stag Hunt variant, adding hares, who tempt players to break from their teams to get individual points. Players must decide if they will cooperate to get more points by capturing stags or go it alone to get the hare.

Preparation

Find an area of approximately five city blocks square to be your playing field. Chose a starting and ending location and a place to keep the balloons. This game requires at least five volunteers: a stag, a stag warden, a balloon warden, and at least two hares. If you have more volunteers, you can have more hares. Materials include costumes for the stag and the hares, and three to five balloons for every player. Each balloon will need to have a small slip of paper inside it, rolled up or folded so it can't be read from outside, with a point value on it. We also included a short quote from notable philosophers about community, individualism, or betrayal.

Rules

All players are given a balloon at the start of the game. These will be used to catch the stag and hares. The stag can be captured by approaching it in a group of three or more people and offering it balloons. If you have enough people, the stag will bend down and allow you to tie your balloons to it's horns. Catching a stag gets each involved with the capture player 10 points, which is marked on your map by the Stag Warden. All of the players must have balloons in order to capture the stag.

Hares are captured by approaching them as an individual and offering a balloon. The hare will pop the balloon and the player will receive the number of points listed on the paper inside. Balloons range from three to seven points. After a hare has been caught, it cannot be caught again until they've moved out of sight of all active players and five minutes have passed.

Players must return to the Balloon Warden to get new balloons after a capture. After one hour, all players return to the start where points are be tallied. The player with the most points is declared the winner and is generally respected by all.

Stag Behavior

The Stag wanders randomly through the play area, accompanied by the Stag Warden. The stag should try to avoid players and only stop and allow players to attach balloons when they have enough people and are approaching correctly. The Stag should try to flee from from players who do not have the required numbers of balloons.

Hare Behavior

The Hare should wander freely through the skyways. When approached by a player, the Hare should pop their balloon, recover the paper from inside, and make sure that player gets it. After popping the balloon, recover the paper inside and give it to the player. Then remove your costume so that players know you are not able to be caught. Hare should also try to avoid being caught, steering clear of players whenever possible.

Possible Variants

• Require players to perform more complicated rituals, like approaching from multiple directions or having the correct ratio of balloon colors, in order to catch the stag.
• Require the players to impress the stag before they can catch it. Impressing the stag can take any form the players can think of.
• Put in a very few balloons the phone number of the stag warden. When the player calls, the stag warden will tell the player the stag's current location.