Boast or Nothing

Boast or Nothing is a trick-taking game for 3 to 5 players. Each player is a contestant in the final round of the World Championship of Boasting. Everyone boasted and bragged their tails off to get here, but now it's the big time. Win, and you'll enjoy free drinks in any bar for the rest of your life from the defeated. Lose, and it's back to the boasting minor league for you. Let's get to the contest!

Each round, players start with seven cards in hand from a deck that contains cards in three suits — red, blue, and yellow — as well as a number of "pass" cards. Randomly stack the three tokens — also red, blue, and yellow — to set up the color rank tower.

The first player leads a card, and everyone must follow suit, if possible; if they can't, they play a card of their choice. If all cards are the same suit, the highest card wins the trick, and whoever played it leads to the next trick. If cards of multiple colors were played, then whichever color is on top of the color rank tower is trump, and the highest card of this suit wins the trick; if no cards of this color were played, then the highest card of the middle color wins. Move the token that matches the color of the winning card to the bottom of the color rank tower. (A "pass" card is always the lowest card played and cannot win a trick.)

After seven tricks have been played, score 1 point if you won the "proper" number of tricks: three tricks with three players, two tricks with four, and one trick with five. If you won no tricks, score 2 points! Move your token on the popularity track accordingly. At the end of a round, whoever has scored as many total points as the number of players in the game wins.