The Adventures of Blake Borrow, World-Class Archaeologist

This is my Game Chef 2008 entry.

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The Adventures of Blake Borrow, World-Class Archaeologist
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:Author: Bryan Hansel
:Copyright: 2008 (c) Bryan Hansel
:Version: 1.1 Playtest
:For: Game Chef 2008
:Art: Vincent Baker’s Dinosaurs
:Influences: Captain Park’s Imaginary Polar Expedition, Breaking the Ice, Bullshit
:Thanks: Jen Schoonover, Adam Dray, David Berg, Jeff Raglin, John Keyworth, Adam Fox

:Notes: This document is written in reStructured text. Importing it at http://rst2a.com/ will style and make it more readable.

.. contents:: Table of Contents

Background Info
===============

It’s 1880 and Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola just published the results of his most recent discovery. He found and surveyed a significant cave painting discovery in a remote area of Spain.

It’s made him world-famous, and he’s now worshiped among the Community of Archaeologists Valorously Exploring, or C.A.V.E. for short. They even hung a full-sized portrait painted by none other than Claude Monet in the Inner Hallway of Explorers.

As a longtime member of C.A.V.E., you’ve learned that Marcelino is, in fact, a fraud–his daughter discovered the cave paintings and, not only that, but at the Prehistorical Congress in Lisbon, the well-respected French have rejected Marcelino’s findings. “He probably painted them himself.”

His full-sized portrait hangs where your head should have been displayed, so in an attempt to capitalize on the excitement of cave paintings, you found a cave and “discovered” a set of your own (um…literally) cave paintings. After cleaning your hands of paint, you present your findings to the Governing Board of the Community of Archaeologists Valorously Exploring, Caves Division. But, before you do, I, Blake Borrow, will show you the tricks of the trade.

.. image:: http://www.lumpley.com/igc08/dinos-4.jpg

Caption: This is the cave painting discovered by Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola (three elements).

Set-Up
======

**What You Need**: You’ll need several pieces of scrap paper or index cards to serve as character sheets, a stack of paper to draw on, a deck of playing cards, some pencils, and 10 to 14 six-sided dice. You can get by with less, but more is definitely better.

**Getting Ready**: Give every player a stack of paper, a pencil, and an index card. Put the dice in the center of the table. Someone, usually the player who’s been digging the most lately, goes first. She/he shuffles the deck of cards, deals everyone four to six cards, and puts the remainder of the deck in the middle of the table. For shorter games with fewer people, use these guidelines for how many cards to include in a deck:

============ ===================================
# of players Number of Cards
———— ———————————–
2 One Suit. Deal four cards.
3 to 4 Two Suits. Deal five cards.
5 to 6 Three Suits. Deal six cards.
7 to 8 Four Suits. Deal six cards.
============ ===================================

**Creating Characters**: Before play, everyone will create a character. Take your index card and write the following on it: World-Class Name, Stat, Cockiness, Reputation, Back Pats, and Humble Pie…oops…Points. To create a character, you must:

– **Pick a World-Class Name**: Try to make it cooler than Blake Borrow. Pretty hard, I know. And *Churchill Babington* is already taken, so don’t even think about it!

– **Pick a Stat**: A stat is something that your character is really, really good at. The rub is that it has to do with archeology. You know, like digging, sweeping, cataloging, surveying, excavating, or other dirty pursuits (you know what I mean).

– **Pick a word or two to describe your style of Cockiness**. Something like sarcastic or proud or shining white teeth.

– **Pick a word or two to describe your level of Reputation**. I’ll leave this one up to you.

– **Write 0 behind Back Pats**: Because, well, you haven’t been patted on the back yet. Back Pats are the points that you will earn to win the game.

– **Write 0 behind Humble Points**: Because, well, you haven’t learned the lesson of humility yet, but get ready to taste it. It’s like burnt coffee.

On Every Turn
=============

**Figure out Playing Order**. During the first turn, whoever has been digging in the dirt most recently goes first. So, if you’ve been out in the garden, on a dig in Egypt, or planting a few trees, you go first. If no one has done any cool digs lately, then determine who goes first by picking the person who’s closest to “OLDER” than dirt.. Play proceeds clockwise.

**Play one card**. During your turn, you play a card by placing it face down in front of you. The value of the card tells you how many dice you can earn during your turn. Aces are valued at one and face cards are equal to zero. You want to earn as many dice as possible, because they allow you to score Back Pats, which are the points that you use to keep score. You want to earn as many Back Pats as possible during your turn, ’cause earning nothing is like, well, not discovering cave paintings in the first place. So, if you get a face card, an Ace, or any other card that isn’t equal to 10, you’ll probably wish it was a 10, but, wait! Even though you didn’t draw a 10, there is a way to a higher score by doing what learned scholars across the globe do all the time to earn their advanced degrees–and, for that matter, what you did to earn yours–by Bluffing. That’s right, you can lie. More about that in a bit.

Also, on your turn, you will **draw a picture of a cave painting** using your pencil and a piece of paper. The picture may look something like this (four elements):

.. image:: http://www.lumpley.com/igc08/dinos-1.jpg

or this (three elements):

.. image:: http://www.lumpley.com/igc08/dinos-2.jpg

or even this (five elements):

.. image:: http://www.lumpley.com/igc08/dinos-3.jpg

But, feel free to draw in your own style with this restriction: **It has to have a cave man, cave woman, cave baby, or a dinosaur in it. And they have to be doing something**. And this restriction: **The drawing must have the same number of elements as the number of points that you’re after.** So, if you’re going to tell the truth, the number of elements will be equal to the point value of the card you intend to play. If you’re going to Bluff, then the number of elements will be greater than the point value of the card.

By the way, everyone draws at the same time.

Role-playing
————

After you draw, you role-play. Role-playing is when you assume the role (like an actor acting) of your character and play out how your character would act; so, really, you play how cool your name is and your style of cockiness and how great you are in your stat and, of course, how humble you aren’t. Because, let’s face it, humility never got anyone anywhere.

In this game, role-playing means that you act out your character addressing the Governing Board of the Community of Archaeologists Valorously Exploring, Caves Division or the G.B.C.A.V.E.C.D., as they’re affectionately known. It’s your job to convince the Governing Board that you’ve actually explored a cave (which you haven’t), and you actually discovered a cave painting (which you did, if discovery includes coming back to your own painting and discovering that it’s dry to touch). But the Governing Board of the Community of Archaeologists Valorously Exploring, Caves Division is smart, so it’s going to take some convincing.

And guess what? The Board members are the other players’ characters or, more exactly, you will have to impress the other players with your flowery prose that you deserve a pat on the back and an award of one six-sided die, or two or more up to the value of the card you drew. **And, you want more dice, because the more dice you have, the better chance you have of scoring a pat on the back. Back Pats are good, because at the end of the game after all the cards have been drawn, the person with the most Back Pats wins.**

Earning Back Pats
—————–

So, really, the game is all about forcing the other players to pat you on the back, until you’ve scored more points than the rest of the players and can **claim the title of World Class Archaeologist**. Sounds like fun, eh? Well then, let’s see how to force the other players to pat you on the back.

To get cracking, imagine that you are your character sitting in front of a stuffy bunch of suits, your peers. These suits are the Governing Board of the Community of Archaeologists Valorously Exploring, Caves Division. **You need to tell them a few things about your latest expedition**, you know, the one where you *discovered* the cave paintings. **Whenever you tell them one of the things about your latest expedition, the other players have to award you with a die.** They can also award you a die if they think you just said something really, really cool.

**You can be awarded a number of dice equal to the score of the card you drew for this turn**. So, keep telling the other players things until you receive this total, **or if you’ve decided to lie** you can keep on trying to earn extra dice until you think you’ve pushed your luck too far. The best and easiest way to keep this up is to frame the things you need to say into a story about your latest expedition.

Things that will earn you a die include, but are not limited to:

– Research you did to learn about the cave.
– Complications getting to the cave.
– Tools you used to dig.
– How dirty you got.
– Saying something about your sexy or handsome research assistant.
– How hard this was.
– Colorful prose about the country you traveled to.
– History you learned.
– The beauty of the painting that you found.
– The significance of the find.
– Anything about the culture associated with the find.
– Factual information about images that appear in the paintings.
– Pointing out items on the painting and why they make this the most significant find yet.
– Other items found at the dig.
– Etc..

Essentially, whenever you add something to your story that the other players like, then they must award you a die. And I know everyone likes to win, so your so-called friends will be playing with a stiff upper lip. If they are, kick them in the leg, ’cause they have no chance of winning against your charm anyway.

Procedure of Telling Your Story
——————————-

Before you get ahead of yourself, let’s discuss the procedure of telling your story. When you’re in front of the G.B.C.A.V.E.C.D., there are some procedures that you need to follow. They’re really easy, so your Cambridge education should prove sufficient for understand them. Your story is going to break down into three parts:

– The Beginning
– The Middle
– The End

In **the beginning**, there was light… no, wait… wrong story. In The Beginning of your story, you’re just going to tell the story as outlined above under *Earning Back Pats*. At some point, you’re going to stop telling your story. If you’re playing it safe, you’ll stop when you’ve received the number of dice equal to the point value of the card you’ve drawn. Or, if you’re bluffing, then whenever you want.

After you’ve stopped telling the story, you’ve entered **The Middle** of your turn. It’s time to roll all the dice you earned while telling the story. **Each roll of a five or six means you’ve scored one Back Pat**. **Any rolls four or under can be re-rolled by telling the Governing Board how your World Class Name, Stat, Cockiness, or Reputation helped you on this expedition**. You can use each of these items once and each allows one re-roll. Once a die is re-rolled, it cannot be rolled again. Each re-roll of a five or six means you’ve scored one Back Pat.

After Back Pats are scored, **The End** of your turn begins. This is where the Governing Board can Call Bullshit on you; before they do though, you must say, **”My dear, esteemed colleagues, I submit this report to your review.”**

More on Calling Bullshit follows, but it boils down to this:

– If the Board does nothing, you gain the Back Pats you’ve earned.
– If the Board Calls Bullshit and you’ve been Bluffing, you lose all the Back Pats scored during your turn.
– If they Call Bullshit, and you’ve been telling the truth, they lose Back Pats.

There are also Humble Points, which only are awarded to Board members when they’re wrong.

Bluffing and Calling Bullshit
—————————–

Now with the hard work of the game out of the way, let’s talk about Bluffing and Calling Bullshit. In this game, the goal is to score the most points, but if the card you draw is low in value, it’s hard to score the most points, so you may want to fudge the truth a bit. This is called Bluffing. In Bluffing, you can keep adding things to the description of your expedition until you think you’re pushing your luck just enough. If you’re not caught, you’re rewarded with extra dice. If there’s one thing you’ve learned from C.A.V.E, it’s that fudging the truth is perfectly acceptable, as long as you can get away with it.

And because everyone in C.A.V.E tends to stretch the truth a bit, a tradition has developed that the Governing Boards can Call Bullshit after a story is told. **In order to Call Bullshit, the majority of the Board must agree.** Any ties assume that Bullshit will be called. Remember, the Board shares the rewards or the consequences of any action they take.

Before a Board Calls Bullshit, they can ask you any number of questions from obscure to point-blank, “Are you bluffing?” After they’re done questioning you, they must decide among themselves if they believe the story or not.

**A Board can call Bullshit when they don’t believe the dice awarded is equal the value of the card drawn**. If they Call Bullshit, then the player must show the Board the value on the card. There are two possible outcomes when the Board calls Bullshit:

– If the Board calls Bullshit and you’ve been Bluffing, you lose all the points scored during your turn.
– If they call Bullshit, and you’ve been telling the truth, they lose points.

In the second, they lose the number of points equal to the number of dice awarded in The Beginning of the turn. Just to make this clear, the number of points they lose is equal to the dice gained while telling your story. These are divided among all the board members; you may have to help your esteemed colleagues with the math. **Every board member will lose, at least, one point**. If the dice awarded divide unequally, dissenting members who didn’t want to Call Bullshit, take the extra dice as punishment for disagreeing with the majority.

Psst… you probably never want to Bluff past 10.

Procedures for Playing the Board
——————————–

After your turn, you’re going to sit on the Board and hear the pathetic story of one of your colleagues, the other players, so it’s nice if you can stay in character. I bet you didn’t even know your character was on the Board. Ha! As a Board member it’s your duty to listen thoughtfully and award dice to the in-turn player as he/she narrates things about his/her dig.

**When awarding dice, be nice. If the player says something cool, stating something that is a new, separate thing, feel free to toss him/her a die**. Work with the Board when doing this though, because the Board should only award one die for each new thing that the player narrates. Also, keep in mind that the nicer you are, the quicker the player’s story will be over, and the less you’ll have to listen to, “Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah.”

**One of the most important jobs of a Board member is questioning the player about his recent find**. ‘Cause you’re a smart Board member, you should use all your wit and training to come up with clever questions that could help determine whether or not the player is Bluffing. Feeling a little slow today? Here are some example questions that you can ask:

– Was a *club* used as a brush to create the painting?
– Did it look like a *diamond* was used to etch the outline?
– Did you have to use a *spade* to remove the dirt?
– After you left the cave, did you have to get a *heart* worm treatment?
– What color was the paint, red or black?
– Are you exaggerating the number of elements in this painting, because from your drawing I make out less?

Definitely work with the rest of the Board when deciding whether to Call Bullshit. Because, you’re by far the smartest of your fellow Board members, feel free to use everything at your disposal to help determine if the player is Bluffing or not. This means letting others know what is in your hand, or not, you wouldn’t lie would you? **At anytime during The End, you can call for a vote, and if you receive a second, the Board must vote on the issue of Calling the Bullshit.** After the vote has been called, someone must announce the Board’s intentions. These are announced using the following phrases:

– To call a bluff: **Why, sir, we believe you are Bullshitting.**
– To do nothing: **We humbly accept your report into the annals of the community.**

And remember, because the Governing Board of the Community of Archaeologists Valorously Exploring, Caves Division is a democracy, a simple majority always wins. And ties always round to Calling Bullshit.

Being Humble
————

Politeness is a necessary evil among communities of archaeologists, so sometimes it’s important to be humble, but most of the time it’s better to be self-serving so you can get as many Back Pats as possible. There are times though, when serving on the Board, that you’ll have your pride handed to you on the plater of being mistaken.

If after you’ve voted, uttered the important phrases, and discovered that the Board has made a mistake, you might earn a Humble Point. Humble Points are a way of tracking how terrible you are as a member of the Governing Board, and they are used to promote terrible members off of the Board and into more acceptable positions, like the position of the President.

**You earn a Humble Point anytime you’re on the Board, have agreed with the majority opinion, and the Board is wrong in that decision (both when Calling Bullshit and when doing nothing). If you’ve had the foresight to disagree with the Board and their lack of ability to discern the truth, you don’t earn a Humble Point.**

Next Turn
———

After the Board has decided the merits of your discovery, push all the dice back into the center of the table, discard your card by showing it to everyone (if you haven’t already), write down the points you scored and let the next player have a shot (to the clockwise), while you join the Board. Who said C.A.V.E didn’t have great pay and benefits?

.. image:: http://www.lumpley.com/igc08/dinos-5.jpg

Caption: There’s nothing like a great meal after winning a game. This picture has nine elements.

Scoring and Winning
====================

Well, my friend, we’ve come a long way. I think, someday, you could be almost as great as me, Blake Borrow, but if you can’t measure up to me, than perhaps, by scoring, you could measure up to *Churchill Babington*. To win this game, you have to score, and much of that was explained above, but let’s get specific here.

It’s simple. You play until everyone has run out of cards, and then, **if you have the highest number of Back Pats, you win**. If there is a tie, then you win if you have less Humble Points than the other archaeologist, because, seriously, who doesn’t like a shameless self-promoter? The award is the title of *World Class Archaeologist*, a well-deserved and world-famous title that is respected in all academic institutions.

A secondary contest is that of humility. **If you have the highest number of Humble Points, you win the Honorary Title of Archaeologist Extraordinarily Humble**.

Want to win big?! Here’s the way: Have the most Humble Points and the fewest Back Pats. *Did I say clueless?* We’ll know that you’re not the best digger in the world, but, heck, some people are better pencil pushers that excavators. If this is you, then you are promoted to the President of the Governing Board of the Community of Archaeologists Valorously Exploring, Caves Division. **And all the other players must kiss your feet!** Remember, this being part of the rules, they did agree to this before the game started.

Ending the Game
—————

The game ends when the last card is played.

Elevator Pitch
===============

The Adventures of Blake Borrow, World-Class Archaeologist *featuring art by* Vincent Baker

A game like no other. *Except those that I stole mechanics from*.

It’s been described as:

| …very Baron von Munchausen meets the Life Aquatic, in a cave.
| …Bullshitting RPG, a long-form version of Balderdash.

Judge Lehman nominated this game for the Game Chef 2008 Riley Madison’s Cutest Game Award.

As an esteemed member of the Community of Archaeologists Valorously Exploring or C.A.V.E. for short, you’ll journey off on far-flung expeditions in search of cave paintings,really, just to your backyard with a bucket of paint, and then, after, you’ll report your findings before the Governing Board of which you are also a member. After you Bluff your way to many Back Pats, you’ll judge the truth in your colleague’s stories and call them on their bullshit.

Quick Play Sheet
=================
I. Set-Up. (See `Set-Up`_.)

A. Gather and pass out supplies.
B. Create a character.
C. Figure out who goes first. Play goes clockwise.
D. Deal the cards.

II. Playing

A. Everyone sets a card down on the table in front of them. (See `On Every Turn`_.)
B. Everyone draws a picture with the number of elements equal to the number they intend to play (bluff or not). (See `Bluffing and Calling Bullshit`_.)
C. Individual Turns. (See `Role-playing`_ and `Earning Back Pats`_.)

1. The Beginning: Role-play and tell your story to earn dice. (See `Earning Back Pats`_.)
2. The Middle: Roll the number of dice earned in The Beginning. Results of 5 and 6 equal Back Pats.
3. Use your World-Class Name, Stat, Cockiness, or Reputation to gain re-rolls. (See `Procedure of Telling Your Story`_.) Results of 5 or 6 equal Back Pats.
4. The Board meets and decides to Call Bullshit or Do Nothing. (See `Procedures for Playing the Board`_.)
5. Show your card. For results: (See `Bluffing and Calling Bullshit`_.)

– If the Board does nothing, you gain the Back Pats you’ve earned.
– If the Board Calls Bullshit and you’ve been Bluffing, you lose all the Back Pats scored during your turn.
– If they Call Bullshit and you’ve been telling the truth, they lose Back Pats.

6. Assign Humble Points. (See `Being Humble`_.)

D. Continue clockwise until all cards are played.

III. Scoring. Assign titles according to Back Pats and Humble Points earned. (See `Scoring and Winning`_.)