Hipster Dice
Hipster Dice Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- Tokens. To track your hipster cred. You could use coins, but that's mainstream. We used moustache combs and coffee stirrers. Now you have to find something hipper than that. Or wave off our pretension and use coins. Whatever. Put them all in the middle of the table.
- Friends. You know what we mean. People who aren't too mainstream and haven't sold out yet.
- A device connected to the Internet. If your coffee shop doesn't make this easy, you're in the wrong place.
The Die
There's one die. Games with multiple dice are so 1990s. Each face on the die corresponds to a category.
- Treble clef. Music your friends probably haven't heard of.
- Moustache. Fashion that isn't too commercial.
- Movie camera. Movies your friends probably haven't seen.
- Coffee mug. Drinks your friends probably haven't tried, and the places they haven't gone to drink them.
- Cheese wedge. Food that's organic and locally sourced, or otherwise out of the mainstream, and the places you find it.
- The letter "a." Literature your friends probably haven't heard of, let alone read.
Playing the Game
The player with the skinniest jeans goes first. In the case of a tie, figure out why and how you know that there's a tie. Then just pick someone, because seriously? Hierarchal turn structures are a product of commercial media.
On your turn, roll the die to pick a category. Come up with something obscure related to that category. For instance: "Have you heard about that new coffee bar down on 5th? There isn't even a sign in front, and it's invitation-only." What you say doesn't actually have to be true; you can make it up. It can be true. The best bluffs have some truth in them. Also, partial truth is way meta.
You can't take forever coming up with something. If your turn lasts longer than it takes for the current indie track that's playing on your record player to finish, forfeit your turn. Or if 58 seconds pass, whichever comes first. You can pass your turn if you want to, but the other players are within their rights to mock you for it, and you won't get any hipster cred. Also, if you say something and everyone has heard of it? Yeah, nice try. Forfeit your turn, and then think about how cool and sophisticated everyone actually playing the game is.
Any other player then has the opportunity to call you a poseur by pointing, sneering, and saying, "Poseur!" (Or whatever, because following instructions precisely makes you mainstream.)
If multiple people challenge you, only the first one to do so counts. Everyone else is just an imitator.
Being a Poseur, Maybe
When someone calls you a poseur, they're saying you made it up. You now have two minutes to go to the Net and prove the claim is completely true; your friends keep time. (They can allow more time if you have a slow connection. Or you can find a place with better Net access.)
If you show proof of your claim, you get two hipster cred from the center. Make the challenger pass the tokens over to you. It's more ironic that way.
If you can't show proof of your claim, you should "graciously" slide one of your hipster cred tokens to the challenger. If you have no tokens, the challenger gets two from the center. Now the challenger can be extra smug.
If you claim something and nobody challenges you, smile imperiously and take one hipster cred from the center.
You score more if you tell the truth in a way that gets you challenged. Proving that truth is stranger than fiction is the hipster way.
Play proceeds to the left.
Winning
The game ends when one person has five or more hipster cred; whoever has the most at that point wins. You can gloat a little, but lording it over others makes you a tool of the establishment.
Obscure Rules
You don't have to play Hipster Dice like this. We have a bunch of alternative ways to play it at hipsterdice.sjgames.com.