Flamewar

A two player card game of Internet courage by Eddy Webb

Version 1.01, revised December 31, 2003

In Flamewar, the players are rivals in a heated battle over four different boards on an online forum. Each player attempts to score flames while the moderators rush from board to board trying to end the flamewar before the site crashes.

Equipment: A deck of playing cards with two Jokers.

To Begin: Take out the four Kings from the deck and place them face up in a row in the middle of the playing area. These are the boards that the players will fight in. Shuffle the rest of the cards, deal five cards to each player, and put the rest face down to form the deck. Determine randomly who goes first.

The Cards: The non-face cards are each player's flames and have the value printed on them (Aces count as 1). The eight face cards are moderators which have special abilities (see below) - Jacks count as 11 and Queens count as 12. Jokers are site crashes and have no numerical value.

Playing Flames: The player whose turn it is plays a card from his hand face down in front of one of the Kings. This is his intended flame. The suit of the flame must be the same suit as the King it's played in front of (unless he can't play a card of the appropriate suit because a board is closed, in which case he can play any other card). His opponent must choose a card from his hand of the appropriate suit and play it face down on the opposite side of the King - if he doesn't have a card of the appropriate suit in his hand, he can play any card except a Joker.

The two players reveal their cards simultaneously and compare them. If one card is of the appropriate suit and the other is not, the player of the appropriate suit card wins both cards (except in the case of trump - see below). If both cards are of the same suit, the players compare the values of the cards. The higher value wins, and the winning player wins both cards. Cards won are put face up into a victory pile in front of the winning player.

Moderators, Closing Boards, and Trump: Moderators (face cards) are considered to have no suit, so any moderator card can be played on any board. If one player plays a moderator on a board during an exchange, the player playing the moderator automatically wins both cards. Further, the moderator closes the board, and the King that the exchange took place by is flipped over. This has a number of effects:

• No more exchanges can be played on the closed board.
• If another board is already closed, it reopens (so that only one board is closed at any time). Turn the original face down King face up.
• The suit of the closed board becomes trump. If you play a card of that suit in an exchange, it beats cards of any other suit, even if the other card matches the suit of the board. If two trump cards are played in one exchange, the values of the cards are compared as normal.

If two moderators are played in the same exchange, the values are compared as normal - tied cards (two Jacks or two Queens) are each won by the player who originally played them. The board does not close when two moderators square off, and play continues as normal.

Order of Cards

• Moderators beat all cards with suits.
• Trump suits beat all other cards with suits, but not moderators.
• Suits that match the board suit beat suits that don't match the board, but do not beat trump suits or moderators.

Site Crashes: If a player has a Joker in his hand, he can choose to crash the site instead of playing a flame or a moderator. He plays his Joker face up on his turn. The game ends unless the other player can play the other Joker immediately, in which case each player wins the Joker they played and play continues as normal.

Turn Order: After each exchange, whichever player won both cards takes the next turn. If both players win their own card, then play passes to the opposing player. Each player draws their hand back up to five cards before the next exchange (starting with the player whose turn it is, if order matters).

Scoring: The game ends either when a site crash is successfully played or when the players have no more cards left in their hands. Each victory pile is counted, and the player with the most cards wins.

Variations

Board Maintenance: Instead of ending the game, a Joker causes all Kings to be turned face up and both players to put their hands back into the deck. The deck is reshuffled, and each player gets five new cards. Play moves to the player who did not play the Joker.

To the Bitter End: Remove the Jokers. Instead of a common deck, each player starts out with half the deck, and draws their hand from there. When their deck runs out, they flip over their victory pile to form a new deck. The game ends when one player has all of the cards.

Design Notes

I used to love War as a kid, but as an adult I find the game very unsatisfying and I've always wanted to make an updated version. One weekend, I witnessed a number of small flamewars on some of the forums that I frequent and thought it could make an interesting game. The idea hit me during a conversation with my wife, and I ended up scribbling the original structure of Flamewar on the back of a Chinese takeout menu.

This game is sort of a cross between War and Spades, with a rotating trump and a premature end game mechanic inspired by Grave Robbers from Outer Space. It seems to work pretty well as is, but I haven't played it extensively - if you have any suggestions on how to make Flamewar better, feel free to send me an email.