Spite Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Setup
• Turns
• Scoring
• End of Game

Setup

You can play with between 3 and 6 people (more than six people can play if you form teams).

Each player chooses a number between one and six. The row on the board that corresponds to this number is then that player's row for the rest of the game. Players take turns to play and play moves in a clockwise direction. Decide who goes first by throwing a single dice each - the highest starts.

Turns

The first player throws all five of the dice. Then one of three things happens:

1. If they do not throw their number, play passes to the next player.
2. If they throw their number, they may elect to "stick", in which case they score (see below) and play moves to the next player.
3. Alternatively, if they throw their number they may elect to throw again. If they do so, they throw only the dice that do not show their number on the top face (a second throw therefore will always be less than five dice). At this point, if they do not throw their number, they lose their score for the WHOLE turn and play passes to the next player. However if they throw their number again, they may elect to either "stick" or throw again. A turn continues in this fashion until a player either sticks or loses score.

Scoring

When a player sticks, they put down counters on their row on the board, starting with the E and moving towards "The Pit of Spite". The player is allowed to put down one counter for each occurrence of their number during that turn. This continues until a player has actually descended into "The Pit".

A player becomes "truly Spiteful" once they have covered all five of the letters S-P-I-T-E, and have a counter in "The Pit". Provided that a player has a full row of counters at the beginning of their turn, they are Spiteful, and this change in personality turns his or her attentions to the numbers of their opponents. They now can nominate another player's number, and then roll the dice, deciding when to stick as before. Once they have decided to stick, they can remove one of the unfortunate opponent's counters for every dice showing the nominated number. The unfortunate opponent can, fortunately, attempt to regain lost counters when it is their go, rolling and scoring in the usual manner, unless they lose all their counters, in which case they are out of the game. This will, of course, happen much more quickly (and much more painfully) if people decide to be really spiteful and start ganging up on other players. When a player is really spiteful, the ability to make swift alliances with other players is as important as the knack of coldly betraying someone who, only seconds earlier, had been your only true ally.

When there are only two players left, any player who is Spiteful uses both their opponent's number and their own to knock off their opponent's counters. This only applies when a player is Spiteful; if they have less than six counters, they only use their own number.

End of Game

The last player with any counters left is the winner.