Wagering Words
Based on the game Just One by Ludovic Roudy and Bruno Sautter
Just One meets Liars Dice. Bet on your friend’s ability to guess a word with limited clues. The higher your bet, the more you can help.
Setup
Clubs (1–9, X), Spades (1–9, X), Hearts (1–9, X), Diamonds (1–9, X), Caps (1–9, X), Switches (1–9, X), Planets (1–9, X), Stars (1–9, X)
Clubs1–9, X
Spades1–9, X
Hearts1–9, X
Diamonds1–9, X
Caps1–9, X
Switches1–9, X
Planets1–9, X
Stars1–9, X
Also needed: Something to write on. Whiteboards are ideal, but paper works fine, too.
Shuffle all 80 cards together.
Gameplay
Each player starts the game by drawing 3 cards. Then, decide on one player to start as the Guesser. The rest of the players are the Gamblers, who will be giving clues to the Guesser and trying to earn points.
Any Gambler draws a card and shows it to all other Gamblers. The Guesser does not see it. The objective of the round is to get the Guesser to say the word on the card.
Each Gambler chooses 1 card and uses the number of the card divided by 3, rounded down with 1 being the minimum, to determine their wager. For example, a 2♦ is a wager of 1 while an 8♣ is a wager of 2. Each Gambler’s wager is the number of one-word clues they may write to help the Guesser figure out the chosen word. These words must be written down silently and in secret until all players are ready.
All Gamblers reveal their words (but the Guesser does not look yet), and any words that are duplicates are discarded (either erased or scratched out). Only unique words may be used as clues.
- The same word on the card but spelled differently is not a valid clue and should be discarded.
- Words that are the same but spelled differently (ex. color and colour) are considered duplicates.
- Words that mean fundamentally the same thing but with a different prefix or suffix are considered duplicates (ex. run and running, actor and actress, royal and royalty, etc.)
Once the unique words are determined, the Guesser may look at the clues and has 3 chances to guess the word from the card. A correct guess should be the exact word on the card. Gamblers may not offer any further clues besides whether the Guesser is correct or not.
If the Guesser gets the word correct, all other Gamblers get their wagered amount of points. If the Guesser does not get the word correct, all other players lose their wagered amount of points. All cards used for the round are discarded.
The game continues until everyone has been the Guesser once. Shuffle and redraw from the discarded cards as needed. Once a player has 0 cards to wager, redraw 3 new ones.
Winning
The winner is the one who has the most points once everyone has guessed once.
Once familiar with the game, groups may decide to do multiple circles of being the Guesser before deciding the winner for longer games.
