Overview Kirk or Picard? Freddy or Jason? Andrew Jackson or

Overview
Kirk or Picard? Freddy or Jason? Andrew Jackson or Andrew Dice Clay? For years, debates like this
have raged in the American consciousness. Admit it, for every time you’ve discussed politics or sports
or Paleolithic art, you’ve had at least one conversation about who would kick whose ass in a fight.
Well, now we’re going to settle some of these burning questions once and for all. More or less. Sort of.
Really, it’s up for debate.
In Clusterfight, players take turns judging hypothetical bouts. The players who aren’t judging are
selecting the participants, betting on the outcome, and playing cards to try to sway the fight.
Object
To win the game you’ll need to score the most points. Players score points whenever their fighter wins
the fight, or they correctly predict the winner of the fight.
Setup
Separate the Fighter Cards from the Battle Cards. Give each player a set of colored betting cards of
their choice. Then, everyone draws three fighter cards and three battle cards. Don’t let the other
players see them.
Fighter Cards
Battle Cards
How To Play
Randomly select one player to be the first judge.
To start a round, the player to the judge’s left plays any one fighter card from his hand face up to
the table. Then the player to his left does the same, and so forth, until everyone except the judge has
played a fighter.
At this point all players except the judge take a moment to place a bet on whichever fighter they
think will win the fight. To do this, players look at their colored betting cards and select the one
that matches the player color of the fighter they think will win. For example, if you think Hulk will
win, and the player who played Hulk has the purple player card, you would select your purple
card. Push the selected card forward (face-down) to show you've made your selection, and keep
this “bet” secret from all the other players.
Now, starting with the last player to play a fighter (i.e. the person to the judge’s right), and going in
reverse order, each player plays one battle card from his hand. He can play that card on any fighter he
wants. Again, this is done in reverse order, so the player who played the first fighter card should play
the last battle card. The judge does not play a battle card.
Once all the players have played a battle card, the judge makes a decision based on the battle as it
currently looks. The judge will usually want to wait for people to argue their cases, but doesn’t have to.
Everyone notes how many points they score (see below), and the cards played in the fight are discarded or put on the bottom of the decks.
All players (except the judge) now refill their hands to three fighters and three battle cards.
The player to the judge’s left then becomes the judge and a new fight begins.
Scoring Points
Whoever played the fighter the judge picked scores two points. Anyone who bet on that fighter scores
one point. If you bet on your own fighter, it is possible to score three points.
It is recommended you keep score like this: Whenever the fighter you played wins a fight, put it in a
front of you, face down. Whenever the fighter you bet on wins a fight, take the battle card you played
that round and place it off to the side in the same way. At the end of the game, count up these cards,
scoring 2 for each fighter card, and 1 for each battle card.
More About Battle Cards
There are a few different types of battle cards.
Cards with red footers are Items. You can give an item to any fighter you want. When you give a fighter an item, you get some reasonable say over how the item is used or interpreted. But, while you can
assume that a fighter might use an illogical item, you can’t assume that he’d deliberately hurt himself
with it. For example, if you give Charles Manson a Prom Dress, you can definitely say that he’s wearing the prom dress. But you can’t give him a gun and say he shoots himself with it.
Cards with purple footers are Status cards. You play them on a fighter, and they take on that
condition. Drop Fightin’ Mad on the Incredible Hulk and, well, you won’t like him when he’s angry.
Cards with blue footers are Actions. These are even simpler. They say what they do right on ‘em.
Cards with green footers are Battlegrounds. These move the battle to a different location. Sometimes
multiple Battlegrounds are played. When this happens, the judge should combine the two in some
bizarre manner. (Players, of course, may suggest the bizarre manner.) For example, if the first player
plays The Moon, and the second player plays Inside a Telephone Booth, you might say that the battle
is taking place inside a Telephone Booth on the Moon.
A Quick Word About Fighters
Some of the fighters in the game are, at the present time, dead, old, fictional, mythical or imaginary.
Since it wouldn’t be much fun to watch a bunch of corpses fight, you can assume that a fighter is in his
prime, or whatever portion of his or her career we most associate them with. You can also assume that
each fighter has their most basic gear with them. Basically, you can assume Lancelot has a sword. You
just can’t assume he has Excalibur.
The Uncertainty Clause
If you draw a fighter or battle card and you’re not sure who or what it is, you may show the card to all
players, discard it, and draw a new one. If you use this to cheat by discarding fighters you don’t think
are very good, then you are taking this game way too seriously.
Ending the Game
A game with 5 or fewer players ends after all players have been the judge twice. A game with more
than 5 players ends after all players have been the judge once.
3-Player Variant
If you're playing with three players, you'll add a "bot" player to each fight. This bot will always play second, in
between the two human players, and always simply plays the top card of the appropriate deck. The bot's battle
card is always played on its own fighter, even if this would be detrimental to that fighter.
At the start of a three-player game, assign the bot a color, just as you would for any other player.
Each fight flows as follows: The player to the judge's left plays a fighter. Then the bot plays the top card of the
fighter deck. Then the player to the judge's right plays a fighter card.
Betting then occurs as normal. The human players are free to bet on the bot's fighter. The bot does not bet.
Once both players have bet, the last player to play a fighter plays a battle card. Then the bot will play the top card
of the battle deck. If the bot draws an Item or a Status, it will play it to its own fighter. If the bot draws an Action
that requires it to choose a fighter, it will likewise always choose its own fighter. If it draws an Action requiring it
to choose more than one fighter, discard it and draw another battle card instead.
Finally, the player who played the first fighter will play a battle card, and the judge will declare a winner
(following, of course, any arguments the judge feels inclined to hear.)
The bot never judges. It will always go second, between the two human combatants.
In a three-player game, play until all players have been the judge twice, or, if you prefer a longer game, three
times.
Team Variant (8-12 Players)
If you have more than 7 players, you should play in teams. The team game is similar to a normal game, except
that two or more players act as one, fielding a pair of fighters instead of a single one.
At the start of the game, pair players off into teams of two. If you have an odd number of players, one will have to
either advise a team, or play as a one-person team. Assign each team a color.
Each player individually draws a hand of three fighter cards and three battle cards.
Pick one team to be the judge. Now, in clockwise order, each team will play two fighters, one from each player's
hand. These two fighters will be allied together against the field.
Once all the teams (except the judging team) have played their fighters, teams must place their bets, as in the
standard game. Teams bet on pairs of fighters, not individual fighters. The two players must come to one
consensus as to which team to bet on.
Once all bets are placed, each player, going counterclockwise, plays a battle card. (As with fighters, the result will
be each team playing two cards, one from each player's hand.)
Battle cards target individual fighters, not teams of fighters.
Once all the battle cards have been played, the judging team chooses a team of fighters to win. The next team to
their left then becomes the judge.
Play until all teams have been the judge once.