Sloshed: Booze and Secrets

Basic Idea
You are taking the roles of a bunch of buddies who haven't seen each other in a while, for whatever reason. It could be that you are recalling your separate tours of duty, maybe you went to different colleges, whatever. The point is you are now catching up. Somewhere along the way, you’ve done something you want to keep secret, but which your buddies will likely uncover during the course of the evening.

Necessary Supplies
Each player needs a blank index card or small piece of paper, a writing implement, a standard six-sided die, a shot glass, and 10 pennies.

Character Creation
Take a blank index card or small piece of paper and write down the following information: your character's name and six potential responses to insults. These can repeat, but you must have at least 3 different responses. For example:

David Hanley
1 - Ignores it
2 - Laughs at it
3 - Laughs at it
4 - Insults right back
5 - Gets angry
6 - Gets angry

Now, on the back of the card, write your character's deep, dark secret. It has to be something that he's done since the last time he saw his buddies and it has to be classifiable as one of the seven deadly sins, but other than that, it can be whatever you like. It has to be something which could reasonably have happened. "Anger: I shot a man" is fine. "Anger: I shot a man on another planet" is not.

The seven deadly sins (in case you didn't know them) are:

Pride -- comparing yourself to others and believing you are better than them
Avarice/Greed -- demanding your "fair share" or more
Envy -- resenting others for what they have
Wrath/Anger -- responding aggressively and/or violently without sufficient reason
Lust -- self-destructive drive for pleasure out of proportion to its worth
Gluttony -- refusing to accept the natural limits and balance (not just in food)
Sloth -- laziness, apathy

How to Play
The game proceeds in rounds. Both rounds as in turns, and as in "the next round's on me." Everyone has a shot glass, placed anywhere on the table they want. It's to the player's advantage to have their shot as close to them and as far away from the other players as possible. Each player has 10 pennies (or any other coin, if all the players agree to it). The players roll dice to see who goes first -- highest roll wins. Any ties are re-rolled until there is only one winner, who has the right to Tell a Story first. After the first player has finished his story, the player to his left gains the right to Tell a Story, and so on, until the game has ended.

In Telling a Story, the player must at least highlight or give some hint as to their Secret. “I got so damn mad” or “I coulda killed him for saying that” are both fine hints for “Secret: I shot a man.” There’s no real incentive to cheat on this by giving false or misleading hints. However, should any player feel that another is doing so, a Vote may be called for. If the Vote is decided in favor of the accused, the accuser must give all his remaining pennies to the accused. If the Vote is decided in favor of the accuser, the accused must split his pennies as evenly among the other players, with any excess going to the accuser.

When a player is Telling a Story, the other characters may ask questions or request clarifications, but they cannot themselves contribute to the story, except in three specific situations: if they Insult the storyteller successfully, if the storyteller narrates them into the story, or if they win a Contest to gain narrative control.

Insults come into play when any character insults the character who is Telling a Story. At that point, the storyteller may (if they so choose) Take Offense. Taking Offense requires that both the player doing the insulting and the player being insulted each roll their die, with the highest total winning. Any ties are immediately discarded and re-rolled. The winner of the conflict gains the right to narrate the rest of the current Story. The loser must immediately cease narrating (if they are the current storyteller) and forfeit their right to Tell a Story for the rest of the round. Obviously, Insulting the storyteller can backfire. In addition, the loser must roll again and consult their Insult reactions, role-playing out the appropriate one (whichever result matches the number of the second roll).

If the storyteller narrates another character into the story, that player is free to jump in and talk over the storyteller, tell their own version, or outright contradict the storyteller. They certainly don’t have to do this, but they are free to do so, according to the rules. If both players insist on conflicting points about the Story, a Contest is required to determine whose version the group finds most believable (note that this doesn’t mean that it is true, just that it is accepted by the drinking group as what “really” happened). The Contest involves each player attempting to toss pennies into their opponent’s shot glass. Each player takes turns tossing pennies until they miss once or run out of pennies. Their opponent can still continue shooting as long as they have pennies, or until they also miss a shot. Whoever got the most consecutive pennies in the opponent’s glass wins the Contest.

A named character may also choose to initiate a Contest in order to take complete narrative control away from the storyteller. The loser of this Contest immediately looses any right to Tell a Story for the rest of this round.

A contest may also be called by any character (named in the Story or not) to determine the outcome of any physical events or actions taking place in the in-game world (to determine the outcome of a fight, to define the current weather, to describe the bar, etc.).

A character can take a limited form of narrative control by Correcting. This is when one player attempts to change a specific fact about a current story, but doesn’t want to take full narrative control through a Contest (”No, no, Bob…the car was bright green, not blue.” or ”Whadda ya mean, Steve wasn’t there? He told me he was.”). To make this change “real,” the player must bid any number of pennies (up to the number he currently has, of course) and put these down on the table in front of him when he makes his statement. The storyteller may either accept this change (and take the pennies), or give out a greater number of pennies to the other player and shoot down their correction in the course of their Story (”Shut up, you colorblind fool. The car was blue, got it?” or ”Steve’s a damn liar -- he wasn’t there.”)

After the storyteller has finished his story, the player to his left gains the right to Tell a Story (unless he lost the right to do so this round due to an Insult or Contest). This process continues until the original storyteller is up again, at which point a new round begins.

If a player thinks they have determined which of the seven deadly sins relates to a character’s Secret, they may guess, but only if they have more pennies than that character’s player. The player whose Secret is being guessed must answer truthfully. If the guess is correct, the guesser receives half of the other player’s pennies (rounded up). If the guess is wrong, the guesser gives half of his pennies (rounded up) to the other player. This same practice applies when guessing exactly what the secret is, but if correct, the guesser receives all of the other player’s pennies, and if wrong, the guesser must give all of his pennies to the other player.

Any and all questions or disputes about rules should be handled by discussion when possible, but if that fails to provide a decision, a Vote may be called for by any player to determine how to proceed or interpret the rules.

The game ends when all Secrets have been guessed correctly, when a number of rounds equal to the number of players has passed, or when a successful Vote is called to end the game.