Stupiduel Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Stupiduel Rules Main Game
  • All the Basics
  • The Cards
  • Setting Up
  • Who is the First Challenger?
• How to Fight a Stupiduel
• Stupiduel Rules Fantasy Game Variation

Stupiduel Rules Main Game

All the Basics

• Number of Duelists – 2-8
• Number of Life Tokens – Three (3) for 2-4 players; Two (2) for 5-8 players
• What is a Life Token – A marker you take when you beat someone in a duel. Consider using something edible or crush-able. Anything will work though. If you lose all your tokens you are out. The last duelist with a Life Token wins.

The Cards

• Item Cards (Red): are your weapons, used in attack and defense. Any single thing that can reasonably* be described by the word on the card is fair to attack or defend with. For example, the "Glass" card can be a drinking glass, pane of glass, looking glass, fiberglass, broken glass, a glassfish, etc.
• All item cards are supposed to be "normal" - don't add alien characteristics to something and expect it to be accepted by other duelists without question. So while the classic "Magic Looking Glass" could be played with the "Glass" card, don't expect other duelists to accept "Magic Broken Glass".
• Modifier Cards (Green): add strange and impossible characteristics to an Item Cards (Red), or increase the amount or size of the Item Card (Red) in reasonable* units; usually feet, pounds, gallons, etc. No duelist may question any Modifier Card (Green) that is added to an Item Card (Red) no matter how improbable it is, though the abuse of outrageous units of measurement may lead to the unit being banned.
• Wild Cards: are included of both Item Cards (Red) and Modifier Cards (Green) types to allow duelists to pick anything they want, as long as it is reasonable* according to the rules for their types.
• Wild Item is a single "normal" item and Wild Modifier only grants a single characteristic

*Note – the word "reasonable" in Stupiduel! means "Whatever you think everyone will let you get away with."

Setting Up

Start by shuffling the deck well. Place it in the middle of the "Field of Honor" in reach of all the duelists. Everyone takes Three (3) cards and keeps them secret.

Who is the First Challenger?

Whoever got the deck out automatically challenged everyone else to a stupiduel, so that duelist goes first. For all games after the first, the honor of First Challenger goes to the duelist who was the first to be eliminated from the previous stupiduel.

How to Fight a Stupiduel

Draw Cards: When it is your turn as Challenger, draw from the deck until you have Five (5) cards. If none of them are Item Cards (Red), keep drawing until you get one.

Issue a Challenge: Choose any other duelist to attack and announce your intentions. The challenged duelist is the "Defender".

• Quick Tip – Ganging up on a successful duelist is legal and necessary. On the other hand, remember that obviously doing too well is an invitation to a mobbing! Learn to fly under the radar! Better yet, learn to put the spotlight on someone else.

Issue a Challenge (cont.): All remaining duelists, if any, become "Seconds" and observe the duel without participating. If necessary, they will decide which duelist wins the challenge if the two (2) duelists engaged in combat cannot decide the outcome of their duel.

Make Your Attack: Take a single Item Card (Red) and as many Modifier Cards (Green) from your hand as desired and make up a story about how the Defender is horribly destroyed. The story can be as weird, elaborate, and ridiculous as you like...you may even tell something short, realistic, and logical if you like.

• Quick Tip – You have infinite resources and opportunity at your disposal, so don't hold back. Your only purpose is to destroy the Defender; you may defy time and reality, and destroy the universe and yourself as long as you hit your target.

Expose the cards and lay them on the table when desired, according to your sense of style.

The Rules for Legal Attack are:

1. The story must in in the Defender's death, whether clearly described or implied.
2. You must use your Item Card (Red) – however modified – to cause your opponent's death directly, or to lead to the victim's inescapable doom.
3. The Item Card (Red) can't be used as a description or action.
4. A Modifier Cards (Green) can't be used as an Item Card (Red).
5. Only one Item Card can be used.
6. Any duelist who spots a rule violation can void the attack and end the round, or keep quiet and let the attack continue.

• Quick Tip – In truth, with a bit of style, guile, and bravado you can sneak just about any story into play. As long as you don't get exposed, it's a fair move.

Allow a Defense: Naturally, it is hopeless for your opponent, but it's sporting and amusing to let the condemned duelist try to escape your scheme. The Defender will choose a single Item Card (Red) and as many Modifier Cards (Green) as desired from his or her hand. If the Defender does not have an Item Card (Red), he or she must draw from the deck until one Item Card (Red) is drawn. The Defender uses the cards to tell a counter-story about how the attacker's scheme is foiled. The Defender's story can be as realistic or strange as your attack, as long as it provides an escape.

The Rules for Legal Defense are the same as for a legal attack, but there are a few additions:

1. Your opponent has the right to ask you up to two (2) questions about your attack scheme. You must answer the questions.
2. The Defender cannot stop your attack by attacking you first. The only exception is if you purposely make an obvious head-on attack, in which case the Defender can try to finish your off first. You cannot lose a life token as a Challenger, even if the Defender kills you to save himself.
3. The Defender must devise and present an escape story, regardless of how pathetic or hopeless it is.
4. Any duelist who spots a rule violation can void the attack and end the round, or keep quiet and let the attack continue. Unlike with an attack, a rules violation in defense does not end the round; the first defense ploy is simply voided and the Defender may try one (1) more time or quit.

Who Wins the Challenge? In the rare occurrence that your opponent escapes your death trap it must happen in one of the following ways:

1. The attacker agrees that the counter-story would work.
2. The defender's attempt was pathetic enough or amusing enough that the attacker decides to allow it to work.
3. The duelists, acting as Seconds, judge in favor of the Defender in a simple thumbs-up/thumbs-down vote. The Seconds only vote if the attacker refuses to accept the Defender's play. Seconds may hear a brief defense of each side's play but no debate is allowed and the vote is final. The Defender wins any tied vote. There are no re-votes.

If You Won the Challenge: When the attacker wins a challenge, the Defender must give you one Life Token. You may do whatever you like to it in celebration except add it to your own pile. A life token lost is out of play. Once a duelist is out of Life Tokens he or she is out of the game but allowed to remain as a Second.

Ending the Challenge: Once the final decision is made, all the Challenger's and Defender's cards used are placed in a discard pile and play passes clockwise to the next Challenger. If you run out of cards, reshuffle.

Winning the Game: The last duelist with Life Tokens wins the game.

Stupiduel Rules Fantasy Game Variation

Same as with the Main Stupiduel game. The only variations come in the form of suggested alternate methods of deck construction:

1. Extra Cheese Deck – Mix the original cards and the Fantasy cards together for cheap and easy victory and defense.
2. Fantasy only – Which is the original intent of the expansion, in which "non-magical" cards are swapped out of the Main game deck and replaced with all the Fantasy expansion cards.

Swap List for Fantasy only Deck:

Item Cards (Red) as follows:

1. All the Wild Items
2. Alarm/Ballon/Blue Whale/Bomb
3. Breakfast Cereal/Bunker/Can/Car
4. Card/Chewing Gum/Cleaver/Clown
5. Cough Drop/Cowboy Hat/Cracker/Dynamite
6. Garden Gnome/Gas/Glue/Grenade
7. Gun/Hamster/High-Priced Lawyer/Mime
8. Modeling Clay/Orange Soda/Pen/Petroleum Jelly
9. Phone/Pickle/Pill/Rubber Gloves
10. Secret Identity/Snowman/Sponge/Tank
11. Tuxedo/Underwear/Yo-Yo

Modifier Cards (Green) as follows:

1. All Wild Modifiers

2. A Lot/Acid Dripping/Electrified/Enough

3. Explosive/Frigid/Heat Seeking/Mutant

4. Radioactive/Super/Too Many

5. Custom Mix – Build the deck using any Stupiduel cards you want.