How to Be

Gother Than Thou (The Rules)

The Most Pretentious Card Game Ever Made.
By R. Hunter Gough
Each deck should have 55 cards. This is enough for three to five players.

Begin by shuffling the deck, and dealing each player five (5) cards. Place the rest (face-down) in the middle of the table. Play begins with the dealer, and continues clockwise from whoever went last.

In addition to the deck and the discard pile next to the deck, each player has an area in front of him/her called their "Fate" pile. The discard pile and all of the Fate piles are always face-up, and are empty at the beginning of the game.

There are three different scores in this game, and each card affects at least one of them. At the beginning of the game, all scores are at zero (0). Only the cards in your Fate pile affect your scores.

= Goth Points. The first person to end their turn with twenty (20) Goth Points wins. That's pretty simple, isn't it? (more about this later.)
= Sickness. Sickness can not go below zero (0). If you have a negative number of Sickness Points, then you are wrong, and you actually have zero. Your "maximum hand size" (the maximum number of cards you can have in your hand) starts at five (5). For every point of Sickness you have, your maximum hand size decreases by one (1). If you ever have five (5) or more Sickness Points, then you "Swoon", meaning that you must discard all of the cards in your Fate pile.
= Money. There are two kinds of Goths: Those who are in debt and those who aren't. If your total money score is negative, then you're "in debt" and you don't get to draw from the discard pile.

How Your Turn Works:
  1. If there are any cards in your Fate pile, you must discard one (1) of them.
  2. You must place one (1) card, from your hand, on top of every player's Fate pile (including your own). If you have less cards then there are players, then you must play all of your cards, but you can choose who you play them on, as long as no-one gets more than one (1) card.
  3. You must draw exactly enough cards to refill your hand to it's maximum size. If you are in debt, you may only draw from the top of the deck. If you are not in debt, you may draw either from the top of the deck or any card from the discard pile (or both). If you have more cards in your hand than your maximum hand size, you must discard down to your maximum hand size.
  4. Play now continues back at step 1 with the player on your left.
If you draw the last card from the deck, shuffle the discards and place them face-down to replace the deck. The first person to have twenty (20) or more Goth Points at the end of their turn wins.