Festive mini games - Day 17 "Cruel Santa"

This year I am sharing 24 mini games over advent, where the rules can be explained on the back of a single business card. Today's game is called "Cruel Santa". This game takes a fair bit of prep, you will be stealing presents from each other and you don't want to use real presents but have a stack of small presents to use. 

Day 17 "Cruel Santa"

Players: 3-8 players
Equipment: Dice and pile of small presents

Concise rules: 
Pile the presents in the centre. Players take turns rolling a dice. If they roll a 6 they can pick a present from the centre and unwrap it. Or steal an unwrapped present from another players winnings. When the last present from the centre is unwrapped, everyone gets 1 last role of the dice. 


Notes:

This is all about chasing the fun presents. The presents you bring will set the tone of the game. I have found the most fun comes when the presents are a mix of things people genuinely want and absolutely chaotic choices. I suggest ranging their value from the stuff you might find inside a cracker to presents worth £3-5. The majority should be somewhere in between. I aim to have about 2-3 presents per player. If I know the players well, I try to add one or two presents that I know specific players will want, I want to create incentives for people to steal. This game gets more fun when people start nabbing presents off each other. 

There are a few variations of this game, many designed to make it less cut throat. For example, instead of stealing presents from other players, some people insist on swapping the presents. That way no one is ever left with no presents and everyone leaves with something. If you want to play this variation i suggest adding some truly terrible gifts. That way people will be motivated to get rid of gifts in the swap, not only will they compete for the best but also to get rid of the worse items. 

A simpler variation is to play the original rules but add a simple rule that people can't take another players last gift. That way people don't leave empty handed.  

The jpg below shows the print file used, the print company requires the sections to be embossed in gold to be pure black. 




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