Ravuya's Stupid Pen and Paper Games
I'm a huge fan of pen and paper games. Recently, I got into Cheap Ass Games, so I've decided to come up with some horrible game ideas to go along with the cheapass philosophy.
Surgeon Races
The Pitch: In today's socialist utopias, there are more doctors than patients. Race with your friends to cure the maximum amount of patients using your quick and cheap surgery skills. Try to stay out of prison for malpractice. Five surgeons working on one patient? Sounds like progress!
What You Need: Patient cards, a 6-sided die, and some chance cards. Alternate versions of the game may include a single "Dibs" card in the chance deck, which allows the player who owns it an instant win for the current turn (even when in jail!). A recommended number of chance cards is 10 per player, and there should be around 25 patient cards for a short (10-minute) game.
The Setup:
- The patient cards are merely counters (but with comedic effect)
- The chance cards give a doctor special eerie powers, like Chosen Opponent Misses A Turn, Get Out Of Jail Free and Surgery Enhancing Drugs. Each player should receive an equal number of these cards (they must, however, be randomly distributed), and any one can be played from the player's stack at a time regardless of stack order.
The game:
- Each player takes a turn on a patient, by either rolling the die or using one of their special cards. Each player starts out without being in jail. When a player uses a special card, their turn is over and the card is discarded.
- If everyone rolls 3 or under on the d6, the patient dies and the player(s) with the lowest roll go to jail, which means they cannot resume play until they use a Get Out Of Jail Free card, or for three turns (not affected by the Miss A Turn card). The patient card is removed from play.
- Otherwise, the player with the highest roll "cures" the patient and they get to keep that patient card. If more than one player gets the highest roll, a coin is flipped to figure out who gets credit for the successful job. The patient card is removed from play.
- Playing the Surgery Enhancing Drugs gives a +2 to the player's d6 only for the next turn, but forces them to pass on the current patient (presumably due to the time it takes to snort the SEDs).
- Keep playing from #1 until all patient cards are out of play. The next card on the deck becomes the current patient for the turn.
- The game ends when all patient cards are cured or dead. Whichever player has the highest number of cured patients wins. If there is a tie for the winning player, a fistfight between the players is called for to settle the score. Beer bottles are allowed. You could also just play roshambo or flip a coin.