This is a game for three or four players, or more.
One player becomes ‘The certain’, figure out who in whatever way you wish. The first time playing this with someone, you may wish to only tell them rules 1-4, and say the latter ones have a special surprise if k
Another is the game manager (GM), probably the person who read these rules and initiated the game.
Everyone else are players.
Step #1, The player who is ‘The certain’ thinks up something he or she as a person thinks is definitely wrong. They tell everyone else this thing.
Step #2, The ‘certain’ player then envision some sort of authority figure, like a politician or judge or police officer or such. This authority figure sees what the player thinks as wrong, as being right.
Step #3, The other players now take turns at arguing with ‘the certain’, as his authority figure, trying to convince him that thing is wrong. ‘The certain’, even though as a player he thinks it’s wrong, has to argue that it is actually correct and right.
He does not actually have to convince anyone at the table, perse. He merely needs the other player to be too dumbfounded for words or a gasp, and he gains a point. The person who is dumbfounded or a gasp may continue to argue if they wish, but each time they give a point and after giving two points, someone else has a turn. The game moderator determines if someone was dumbfounded or a gasp.
Turns do not have to go around the group in order (if two people are keen to go at once, flip a coin or such), but all the players get one turn each, before anyone gets a second turn.
Also if anyone can’t think of anything, that’s fine, they can pass on their turn.
Step #4, Every player gets three turns. Remember that anyone who can’t think of anything or does not wish to can simply pass on their turn.
Step #5, The reversal: The game moderator has had enough time (assuming he read these rules in advance) to think of a fictional situation where the authority figures certainty on the matter is likely to cause harm to other characters (children, women, elderly) in the fictional world, or even death. Important: In the fiction, at this stage, it only seems likely that it will. By the rules (based on a certain choice), it certainly will happen latter - but in the fiction at this point in play it only seems highly likely.
The game moderator presents this fictional situation to ‘the certain’.
Step #7, The ‘certain’ player now decides if his character goes through with what the character was certain of. HOWEVER, if his character decides not to, each time he goes to declare that, players get turns at returning the arguements ’the certain’ previously gave (as best the player remembers them, and twisting the words for effect is valid play).
Each time ‘the certain’ simply repeats a refusal to do it, the players as a group, get a point. Every time ‘the certain’ is left a gasp, the players as a group get a point. The game moderator determines if either of these occurred.
All players get three turns as before (ie, in no particular order except everyone has to have one turn before anyone gets their second turn). if they score two points that’s the end of their turn. They get to present roughly one argument in an attempt to gain each point. What qualifies as one, single arguement is slightly ambiguous and the game moderator can make a call on the player who’s turn it is, to now finish. However, if everyone’s sitting forward in their seats, this doesn’t really need to be done.
Step #8, If the authority figure goes through with it, after all players have had their turn, the thing that seemed likely to happen in the fiction, does indeed happen. If the authority figure does not, the fiction ends there, much as a movie might end upon the expression of a broken man.
Step #9, the points gained by ‘the certain’ and by the players as a group, are a sort of artifact generated by play, there to leave a nagging question as to who wins in a situation like this.
Copyright, Callan S. 2009
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