CRAP

Contributed by Nathan Paziuk

CRAP stands for Challenge, Recycle, Aquire, and Protect. These are the four central "actions" of the game.

Number of players: 3 - 6

Gear: 2 standard 52-card deck, jokers optional. Two 6-sided dice.

Setup: shuffle the decks together and stack them face down. Each player rolls the two dice and then draws that many cards. This is their starting hand. Each player should now have from 2 to 12 cards. The person with the fewest cards starts. If there is a tie, they have a roll off. The lowest die roll wins and goes first.

Play then proceeds clockwise around the table, each player acting in turn. During the game players will have "unprotected" cards, which they hold in their hand, "protected" cards, which are face down in front of them, and scoring sets of four cards, which they place face up beside them. At the start of the game, all cards drawn by players are unprotected.

Turn: On a player's turn they may do only one of the following actions:

1. Score

Take four (protected or unprotected) cards with the same face value (4 Aces, 4 king's, 4 2's, etc), place them face up in beside them, and state, "Score x's". You may substitute jokers for any other cards if you wish. Exceptionally, if you are scoring Aces, take one card from the highest other scored set on the table from any player and place it across your Aces. As you will learn, the value of a set of Aces depends on the table state of when they are played. You may also score a double set of 8 equal cards. In this case keep the set together as it will affect points.

2. Recycle

You may discard your whole hand, roll the two dice, and draw a new hand of that many cards. State "Recycle", reveal your hand to all players. Once the players are satisfied looking at your hand, place them in a discard pile. Roll two dice, and draw that many new cards. Protected cards are not guaranteed to be recycled. On a recycle call, the recycler does a roll off with another player. If the other player rolls higher, than the recycler must also recycle all their protected cards. On a roll of equal or better, the recycler only recycles the unprotected part of their hand.

3. Acquire

You may choose a card value and state "Acquire x's", for example "Acquire Kings" or "Acquire twos". Typically you must have a card with the stated value in your hand. Do not reveal it upon calling Acquire. All players MUST now give all cards in their hands of that type to that player. This is not optional. The only exception is protected cards. Any cards players have that are protected are not surrendered when Acquire is called. If no players have any of the specified card, then player calling Acquire must discard their card of that type, even if it is protected. If I call "Acquire Kings", but no other players have any Kings to give me, then I must discard the King in my hand, or the King on the table.

Acquire bluffing rules: you are allowed to make an acquire call without having the card of the type you are asking for, however, you are bluffing and if another player decides to call your bluff, you do not receive any of the acquired cards (they remain with the players they were with) and you must discard a card at random from your hand. If a player calls a bluff, but the player is NOT bluffing (they must reveal that card either from their hand or protected cards to prove it is not a bluff) then the player who called the bluff must discard a card at random from their hand. If a player bluffs, and no one has any of the specified cards, and no one calls their bluff, then they do not discard any cards and play proceeds to the next player.

4. Challenge

You may challenge another player. When challenge is called, the challenger rolls a die. Both the challenger and challenged now places a number of cards face down on the table in front of them equal to the die roll. If they do not have enough cards in their hand, they place all their cards face down on the table (this could be zero cards). The challenger and then the challenged then each state a face value, and a suit. After they've both made their guesses, the cards are flipped face up. For each match of one of the opponent's cards with either the stated face value or the stated suit, the player is rewarded with a card drawn from the face down deck. The players draw the number of cards they have earned and then return their cards to their hand.

Example. 3 cards are put down by a player, face down, a 2 of hearts, 2 of diamonds, and king of diamonds. The other player picks 2 of diamonds (lucky choice!). When revealed, he sees he matched with 2 cards showing 2, and 2 cards showing diamonds (you double count the 2 of diamonds), so he gets to draw 4 cards.

5. Protect

A player may choose a card in their hand, call "Protect", and then place that card face down on the table in front of them. This card is still essentially in their hand, but is protected from various actions. Protection does the following:

a. The card is not surrendered if an Acquire for that card type is called.

b. The card is not subject to a challenge. If player does not have enough cards in their hand for a challenge, they still do not use the protected card.

c. The card is not subject to Co-operate.

d. The card is not guaranteed to be recycled on a recycle call. On a recycle call, the recycler does a roll off with another player. If the other player rolls higher, than the recycler must also recycle all of their protected cards. On a roll of equal or better, the recycler only recycles the unprotected part of their hand.

e. The card is not subject to random discards from bluff calls.

f. For all other purposes, protected cards are considered in the hand of the user. They must be revealed if a bluff is called if that card is the only card they have that matches their call.

6. Co-operate

This is a less core part of the game, but a valid move nonetheless. A player chooses an opponent and states "Cooperate". The players exchange hands. They examine each others' hands. Once satisfied, they then return each others' hands. Each player then draws one card from the face down deck.

7. Optional action: Force recycle

We introduced this rule, but never used it. We're not sure it's required for game balance. We recommend not using it unless a situation occurs in which it is clearly needed to break a stalemate. A player chooses an opponent and states "Force Recycle". A majority of the other players at the table who are not the person calling for a force recycle, or being force recycled now vote if the force should occur. If a majority agree, then the player forced must do a recycle action, following all the regular rules regarding protected cards and such.

Scoring:

When a player attempts to draw a card from the card pile, but there are no cards left, a scoring round immediately begins. Remember how many cards that player has yet to draw, as they will draw them all still.

When a scoring round starts, all protected cards immediately get unprotected and return to the owners hand.

Each player now scores according to the following rules.

Each set of 4 they played on the table counts as the face value * 10 points. (2's worth 20, 10's worth 100, J's worth 110, Q's worth 120, K's worth 130, Ace's, special). One point is subtracted for each joker used. For example a set of three 4's and a joker is worth 39 points.

A set of Ace's is scored at the highest value set on the table at the time the Ace's being scored, plus 10. Example, Aces are played. Highest value set on table is 7's. Ace's are worth 80. This is why when Ace's are scored you steal a card from the set and place it over the Aces, so you can remember later what they were worth. Even if a higher value set is played after the aces and before a scoring round, the Aces worth does not change.

A double set counts as two sets, each worth one more than the face value. For example double 7's count as two sets worth 80 and 80.

After scoring, if no winner is found, shuffle all cards except for players current hands into the deck (discard pile + all scored cards). The player who was looking to draw more cards now draw the number of cards they are owed.

Winning:

You can set the threshold wherever you like. A score of 1000 was used and resulted in 3 full plays through the deck. You do not win until a scoring round occurs and you pass the winning threshold. At that point, the player with the highest point total over the threshold wins. This means someone may have 990, and play a set of 4, and does not win immediately. You must play through to the scoring round.