Battleground

Originally written by GPT Chat AI, and adjusted by our play testers. This game is specifically made to be played with a ZSA Cards pack, but you may adjust to play with 2 regular sets of cards.

The cards and the deal

Equipment: A deck of ZSA Cards.

Setup: Shuffle the deck and deal out all the cards equally between the players. Players should arrange their cards in a face down stack in front of them. Take the top 7 cards from your stack and hold these as your hand. You may look at the cards in your hand, but not your stack.

Card Actions:
• Number cards (1-9): These cards represent basic attacks. Once a turn, you may use a number card to attack any other player. The number on the card indicates the amount of damage the attack deals. For example, if you play a 5, you may deal 5 damage to any player of your choice. The damage is taken from the player’s stack, and put into the discard pile (face down). If the player’s stack doesn't have enough cards to cover the damage, the rest is taken from their hand. You choose which cards they should discard from their hand in this case, but without seeing the card (choose from the back).

• 0 cards: Heal for 20. Take 20 cards out of the discard pile and add them back to your stack (the cards remain face down). If there aren’t 20 cards in the discard, take as many as there are.

• X cards: Heal for 10. Take 10 cards out of the discard pile and add them back to your stack (the cards remain face down). If there aren’t 10 cards in the discard, take as many as there are.

• Jack: You may swap hands with any other player. You may not see their hand first.

• Queen: Force any other player to discard one card. You may not see the front of the cards. Pick the card from the back.

• King: Steal one card of your choice from another player's hand. You may not see the front of their cards. Pick the card from the back.

• Ace cards: Deny any action, at any time, played by any other player.

The play

On your turn, you must choose one of the cards in your hand and play it. This may be an attack card, directed towards any other player, or a special card.

Once you play your card, pick up one card from your stack. This ends your turn. If you run out of cards in your hand, refill with 7 from your stack.

Winning

Once you run out of cards in your hand and stack, you are out of the game. The last player left with at least one card is the winner.