Crowdfund This! Rules

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Crowdfund This! Rulebook Title

We all know that one person who thinks of themselves as “the ideas person.” always talking about some sort of great and novel creative project that combines
the best elements of all the various pieces of guff around you and them into
something amazing and awesome.

Crowd-funding gives that person an opportunity to prove how great their idea is. Other people can contribute money—real actual money—to showing just what a wonderful idea it is.

This is a game about being that person.

…And the people voting.

How To Play

In this game, players take turns to pitch a very silly crowdfunding proposal to the
other players, using the cards in their hand as conceptual prompts.

To prepare the game, shuffle the deck and have each player draw three cards. Players then take turns (starting with the youngest player) as follows:

  1. If you’re holding a card you really don’t want to use in your pitch, you can discard it (face-down, so nobody can see it) and draw another instead. You can replace as many cards as you want this way, but each one will penalise your final score.
    You can only discard ‘success’ or ‘disaster’ cards if you have another of the same card in your hand. Once you draw one, you’re stuck with it!
  2. When you’re ready, it’s time to start your pitch! Your goal is to describe whatever bizarre pop culture amalgamation can tie together all the cards in your hand. For each concept you work into your pitch, reveal the card from your hand and place it face-up in front of you.
  3. Every time you reveal a card, you can draw another card to make your pitch longer and more elaborate. But be careful—the very next card might mean your project is DOOOOMED!
  4. Once you have only one card left in your hand, you can choose to end your pitch by placing your last card face-down next to your pitch cards.
    You can’t use a Success or Failure card in your pitch, so if you draw one, it must be your final face-down card.
    If you ever draw more than one card you can’t pitch, you must end your turn immediately and place both face-down.
  5. When your pitch is over—for whichever reason—your turn ends and play passes to the next player.

…And that’s it! Once everyone has pitched their project ideas, it’s time to vote for whose terrible idea gets funded.

Vote & Score

After all pitches are made, everyone votes for one project they want to back (no, you can’t vote for your own!). This determines which pitches are funded by the fickle crowd, or ignored.

  • Failed: If nobody votes for your idea, you gain no points.
  • Partially Funded: If anyone votes for your project, you gain points equal to the number of cards in your pitch.
  • Fully Funded: If a your project gets the majority of votes, you score points equal to double the number of cards in your pitch. Your backers each score that many points as well.
  • Discard Penalty: Whether your project is funded or not, you lose a number of points equal to the number of cards you discarded.

Finally, everybody flips their face-down card(s) to reveal the ultimate fate of
their project.

  • Regular Card: No change.
  • Runaway Success: You and your backers get double points from your pitch! SMUG TIME!
  • Doomed to Failure: Your backers gain no points from your pitch! But not you. After all—they knew the risks…

Once all the points are tallied, the player with the most points wins!

Credits

Crowdfund This! is a micro-game by Talen Lee (with late rules editing by Fox Lee)

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